In My Very Own Self, I Am

Sometimes Life Takes Hold Of One, Carries The Body Along, Accomplishes One's History, And Yet Is Not Real, But Leaves Oneself As It Were Slurred Over.

After All, The World Is Not A Stage-not To Me: Nor A Theatre: Nor A Show-house Of Any Sort. And Art, Especially Novels, Are Not Little Theatres Where The Reader Sits Aloft And Watches...and Sighs, Commiserates, Condones And Smiles. That's What You Want A Book To Be: Because It Leaves You So Safe And Superior, With Your Two-dollar Ticket To The Show. And That's What My Books Are Not And Never Will Be...whoever Reads Me Will Be In The Thick Of The Scrimmage, And If He Doesn't Like It If He Wants A Safe Seat In The Audience-let Him Read Someone Else.

Unless One Decorates One's House For Oneself Alone, Best Leave It Bare, For Other People Are Walleyed.

The Brangwens Had Lived For Generations On The Marsh Farm, In The Meadows Where The Erewash Twisted Sluggishly Through Alder Trees, Separating Derbyshire From Nottinghamshire.

The Artist Usually Sets Out -- Or Used To -- To Point A Moral And Adorn A Tale. The Tale, However, Points The Other Way, As A Rule. Two Blankly Opposing Morals, The Artist's And The Tale's. Never Trust The Artist. Trust The Tale. The Proper Functions Of A Critic Is To Save The Tale From The Artist Who Created It.