Literature Has Been The Salvation Of The

The Novel Remains For Me One Of The Few Forms Where We Can Record Man's Complexity And The Strength And Decency Of His Longings. Where We Can Describe, Step By Step, Minute By Minute, Our Not Altogether Unpleasant Struggle To Put Ourselves Into A Viable And Devout Relationship To Our Beloved And Mistaken World.

The Short Story Is The Literature Of The Nomad.

These Stories Seem At Times To Be Stories Of A Long-lost World When The City Of New York Was Still Filled With A River Light, When You Heard The Benny Goodman Quartets From A Radio In The Corner Stationery Store, And When Almost Everybody Wore A Hat.

The Irony Of Christmas Is Always Upon The Poor In Heart; The Mystery Of The Solstice Is Always Upon The Rest Of Us.

Fiction Is Experimentation; When It Ceases To Be That, It Ceases To Be Fiction.