How Can One Say, 'no, This Isn't

You Asked If I Thought My Fiction Had Changed Anything In The Culture And The Answer Is No. Sure, There's Been Some Scandal, But People Are Scandalized All The Time; It's A Way Of Life For Them. It Doesn't Mean A Thing. If You Ask If I Want My Fiction To Change Anything In The Culture, The Answer Is Still No. What I Want Is To Possess My Readers While They Are Reading My Book — If I Can, To Possess Them In Ways That Other Writers Don't. Then Let Them Return, Just As They Were, To A World Where Everybody Else Is Working To Change, Persuade, Tempt, And Control Them.

You Don't Want To Repeat Yourself For One. You Don't Want To Fall Into The Clichés For Another. And You Don't Want To Be Licentious Really. You Want To Be Descriptive, If You Can Be. And You're Not Setting Out To Arouse Anybody.

The Hard Part Is, Of Course, The Proximity Of Death. The Number Has No Meaning As Long As You're Fit And Healthy. But You Know That You Only Have So Much Time Left And You Don't Know How Much It Is. It Could Be A Very Short Time.

The Tragedy Of The Man Not Set Up For Tragedy ? That Is Every Man?s Tragedy.

Nothing Has A More Sinister Effect On Art Than The Artist's Desire To Prove That He's Good. The Terrible Temptation Of Idealism! You Must Achieve Mastery Over Your Idealism, Over Your Virtue As Well As Over Your Vice, Aesthetic Mastery Over Everything That Drives You To Write In The First Place - Your Outrage, Your Politics, Your Grief, Your Love!