If There Is A War To Be

I Seemed To Have Spent The Whole Time Either Reading, Which I Loved, Or Laughing, Which I Love, Or Fooling About, Which I Loved. There Was The Usual Teenage Angst: "nobody Understands Me" And "i'm The Only Genius In The World" And All That Stuff. But That Didn't Get Very Deep.

A Story, To Me, Has A Particular Sprite, Like The Angel Of The Spirit Of That Story - And It's My Job To Attend To What It Wants To Do. When I Tell The Story Of Cinderella, The Sprite Does Not Want Me To Make It Into An Allegory Of The Fall Of Communism. The Sprite Would Be Unhappy If I Did That.

When It Comes To Telling Children Stories, They Don’t Need Simple Language. They Need Beautiful Language.

What I Couldn't Help Noticing Was That I Learned More About The Novel In A Morning By Trying To Write A Page Of One Than I'd Learned In Seven Years Or So Of Trying To Write Criticism

Writing Is Tyranny ... But Reading Is Democracy.