He Who Speaks Without An Attentive Ear

Semi-facetiously, When People Ask Me Why I Write These Kinds Of Stories, I Simply Say That I Was Warped As A Child. And, There Is Some Truth To That.

It Had That Comfortably Sprung, Lived-in Look That Library Books With A Lively Circulation Always Get; Bent Page Corners, A Dab Of Mustard On Page 331, A Whiff Of Some Reader's Spilled After-dinner Whiskey On Page 468. Only Library Books Speak With Such Wordless Eloquence Of The Power Good Stories Hold Over Us, How Good Stories Abide, Unchanged And Mutely Wise, While We Poor Humans Grow Older And Slower.

They're Animals, All Right. But Why Are You So Goddam Sure That Makes Us Human Beings?

It Didn´t Occur To Me Until Later That There´s Another Truth, Very Simple: Greed In A Good Cause Is Still Greed.

Most Books About Writing Are Filled With Bullshit. Fiction Writers, Present Company Included, Don’t Understand Very Much About What They Do—not Why It Works When It’s Good, Not Why It Doesn’t When It’s Bad.