If I Write A Character, Instead Of

Girls Forbidden To Dance Would Only Attract Husbands With Bad Complexions And Sunken Chests.

I Was Thinking How Amazing It Was That The World Contained So Many Lives. Out In These Streets People Were Embroiled In A Thousand Different Matters, Money Problems, Love Problems, School Problems. People Were Falling In Love, Getting Married, Going To Drug Rehab, Learning How To Ice-skate, Getting Bifocals, Studying For Exams, Trying On Clothes, Getting Their Hair-cut And Getting Born. And In Some Houses People Were Getting Old And Sick And Were Dying, Leaving Others To Grieve. It Was Happening All The Time, Unnoticed, And It Was The Thing That Really Mattered.

Some Pulitzer Winners - Novelists - Have Confided To Me That Getting The Prize Screwed Them Up. It Messed With Their Heads. That Hasn't Been My Experience.

Biology Gives You A Brain. Life Turns It Into A Mind.

But That Was In The Days When They Expected Perils To Come From Without, And Nothing Made Less Sense By That Time Than A Survival Room Buried In A House Itself Becoming One Big Coffin.