Every Year, When You're A Child, You

Sometimes Our Connection Is Frayed, It Is In Danger, It Seems Almost Lost. Views And Streets Deny Knowledge Of Us, The Air Grows Thin. Wouldn't We Rather Have A Destiny To Submit To, Than, Something That Claims Us, Anything, Instead Of Such Flimsy Choices, Arbitrary Days?

It's Not Possible To Advise A Young Writer Because Every Young Writer Is So Different. You Might Say, "read," But A Writer Can Read Too Much And Be Paralyzed. Or, "don't Read, Don't Think, Just Write," And The Result Could Be A Mountain Of Drivel. If You're Going To Be A Writer You'll Probably Take A Lot Of Wrong Turns And Then One Day Just End Up Writing Something You Have To Write, Then Getting It Better And Better Just Because You Want It To Be Better, And Even When You Get Old And Think, "there Must Be Something Else People Do," You Won't Be Able To Quit.

I Saw How The Forms Of Love Might Be Maintained With A Condemned Person But With The Love In Fact Measured And Disciplined, Because You Have To Survive. It Could Be Done So Discreetly That The Object Of Such Care Would Not Suspect, Any More Than She Would Suspect The Sentence Of Death Itself.

Luck Took Me Right Out Of Myself - I Read It In One Gulp, And It Never Let Me Down. Sharp And Surprising But Always Responsible, No Tricks For Tricks' Sake; So Satisfying, With Its Shifting And Puzzles. So Much Fiction Turns Out To Be Diversion, In Spite Of Fancy Claims, And Doesn't Really Look At Anything. Well - This Does.

I Despised Their Antics Because I Took Life Seriously And Had A Much More Lofty And Tender Notion Of Romance. But I Would Have Liked To Get Their Attention Just The Same.