Getting Even Is One Reason For Writing.

I Do Have A Very Conscious Desire Not To Be Academic. I'm Antiacademic. I Hate Jargon. I Hate That Sort Of Pretension. I Am A Person Who [commits] Breaches Of Decorum - Not In Private Life, But In My Work. They Are Part Of My Mode Of Operation. That Kind Of Playfulness Is Part Of My Nature In General. The Paradox That, In A Way, To Take Something Very Seriously, You Can't Always Be Serious About It.

I Was Struck By The Way In Which Meanings Are Historically Attached To Words: It Is So Accidental, So Remote, So Twisted. A Word Is Like A Schoolgirl's Room--a Complete Mess--so The Great Thing Is To Make Out A Way Of Seeing It All As Ordered, As Right, As Inferred And Following.

My Face Is Muffled In My Mother's Clothing. Her Rhinestones Injure Me. See: My Feet Are Going. Fish Flee The Forefinger Of My Aunt. The Sun Streams Over The Geraniums. What Has This To Do With What I Feel, With What I Am.

If You Were A Fully Realized Person-whatever The Hell That Would Be-you Wouldn't Fool Around Writing Books.

I Get Very Tense Working, So I Often Have To Get Up And Wander Around The House. It Is Very Bad On My Stomach. I Have To Be Mad To Be Working Well Anyway, And Then I Am Mad About The Way Things Are Going On The Page In Addition. My Ulcer Flourishes And I Have To Chew Lots Of Pills. When My Work Is Going Well, I Am Usually Sort Of Sick.