Blinded Following The Blindfolded

Sometime During Your Life—in Fact, Very Soon—you May Find Yourself Reading A Book, And You May Notice That A Book’s First Sentence Can Often Tell You What Sort Of Story Your Book Contains.

So You’re Reluctant, I Said To Myself. Many, Many People Are Reluctant. It’s Like Having Feet. It’s Nothing To Brag About.

One Has To Adopt A Sort Of Zen Calm, In Which You Know You Wrote The Best Book That You Could At The Time.

Friends Can Make You Feel That The World Is Smaller And Less Sneaky Than It Really Is, Because You Know People Who Have Similar Experiences.

Opera Was An Enormous Part Of My Childhood. My Parents Were Both Opera Buffs, And They Met In The Box Seat Of An Opera Performance. And I Also Was A Boy Soprano, So Before Puberty Hit, I Was Onstage Playing A Wide Variety Of Orphans And Urchins In All Sorts Of Operas, And The Sheer Melodrama Of Their Stories Was Just Always Appealing To Me.