As A Rule Of Thumb I Say,

I Couldn't Go On, Too Conscious All At Once Of My Whispering, My Eternal Posturing, Always Transforming The World With Words--changing Nothing.

As Every Writer Knows... There Is Something Mysterious About The Writer's Ability, On Any Given Day, To Write. When The Juices Are Flowing, Or The Writer Is 'hot', An Invisible Wall Seems To Fall Away, And The Writer Moves Easily And Surely From One Kind Of Reality To Another... Every Writer Has Experienced At Least Moments Of This Strange, Magical State. Reading Student Fiction One Can Spot At Once Where The Power Turns On And Where It Turns Off, Where The Writer Writes From 'inspiration' Or Deep, Flowing Vision, And Where He Had To Struggle Along On Mere Intellect.

As A Rule Of Thumb I Say, If Socrates, Jesus And Tolstoy Wouldn't Do It, Don't.

In University Courses We Do Exercises. Term Papers, Quizzes, Final Examinations Are Not Meant For Publication. We Move Through A Course On Dostoevsky Or Poe As We Move Through A Mildly Good Cocktail Party, Picking Up The Good Bits Of Food Or Conversation, Bearing With The Rest, Going Home When It Comes To Seem The Reasonable Thing To Do. Art, At Those Moments When It Feels Most Like Art -- When We Feel Most Alive, Most Alert, Most Triumphant -- Is Less Like A Cocktail Party Than A Tank Full Of Sharks.

I Cannot Believe Such Monstrous Energy Of Grief Can Lead To Nothing!