--nor Had I Understood Til Then How

The Best Readers Come To Fiction To Be Free Of ... All That Isn't Fiction.

You Can No More Make Someone Tell The Truth Than You Can Force Someone To Love You.

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!

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.

I Think I Write Or Publish As Much As I Do Because I Can Bear Being Without A Book To Work On.