Evil Requires No Reason.

At Different Times And In Different Places I Have Come To Expect Certain Books To Look A Certain Way, And, As In All Fashions, These Changing Features Fix A Precise Quality Onto A Book's Definition. I Judge A Book By Its Cover; I Judge A Book By Its Shape.

As Readers, We Are Seldom Interested In The Fine Sentiments Of A Lesson Learnt; We Seldom Care About The Good Manners Of Morals. Repentance Puts An End To Conversation; Forgiveness Becomes The Stuff Of Moralistic Tracts. Revenge - Bloodthirsty, Justice-hungry Revenge - Is The Very Essence Of Romance, Lying At The Heart Of Much Of The Best Fiction.

It Is In The Translation That The Innocence Lost After The First Reading Is Restored Under Another Guise, Since The Reader Is Once Again Faced With A New Text And Its Attendant Mystery. That Is The Inescapable Paradox Of Translation, And Also Its Wealth.

In No Way Am I Demeaning Writing Or Any Other Form Of Art Because It's Popular. What I'm Saying Is That Anything Fed Into The Industrial Machinery To Comply With Rules Of Size And Length And Shelf-life Has A Hard Time Surviving As Art.

Most Readers, Then And Now, Have At Some Time Experienced The Humiliation Of Being Told That Their Occupation Is Reprehensible.