History Isn't What Happened, History Is Just

In Those Days, We Imagined Ourselves As Being Kept In Some Kind Of Holding Pen, Waiting To Be Released Into Our Lives. And When The Moment Came, Our Lives -- And Time Itself -- Would Speed Up. How Were We To Know That Our Lives Had In Any Case Begun, That Some Advantage Had Already Been Gained, Some Damage Already Inflicted? Also, That Our Release Would Only Be Into A Larger Holding Pen, Whose Boundaries Would Be At First Undiscernible.

I Have At Times Tried To Imagine The Despair Which Leads To Suicide, Attempted To Conjure Up The Slew And Slop Of Darkness In Which Only Death Appears As A Pinprick Of Light: In Other Words, The Exact Opposite Of The Normal Condition Of Life.

When You Read A Great Book, You Don't Escape From Life, You Plunge Deeper Into It.

Is Any Novelist Going To Recognize The Moment When He Or She Has Nothing More To Say? It Is A Brave Thing To Admit. And Since As A Professional Writer You Are Full Of Anxiety Anyway, You Could Easily Misread The Signs.

Life Is Like Invading Russia. A Blitz Start, Massed Shakos, Plumes Dancing Like A Flustered Henhouse; A Period Of Svelte Progress Recorded In Ebullient Despatches As The Enemy Falls Back; Then The Beginning Of A Long, Morale-sapping Trudge With Rations Getting Shorter And The First Snowflakes Upon Your Face. The Enemy Burns Moscow And You Yield To General January, Whose Fingernails Are Very Icicles. Bitter Retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually You Fall Beneath A Boy-gunner's Grapeshot While Crossing Some Polish River Not Even Marked On Your General's Map.