One Should Never Turn One's Back On

No Matter That You Anticipate A Thing; You Get So Used To It As Part Of The Future That Its Actuality, Its Arrival, Its Force And Presence, Startles You, Takes You By Surprise, As Would A Ghost Suddenly Appearing In The Room Wearing Familiar Perfume And Boots.

Perhaps She Drives Men Away. Perhaps, Without Even Being Able To Help Herself, She Just Puts Men Into Her Ill-tempered Car And Drives Them Off: To Quarries, Dumps, Small Anonymous Bodies Of Water.

People Love Gossip Because It's Slightly Removed From Actuality. It's A Very Literary Thing... You Can Hear A Great Story, And It Turns Out That It's Largely Not True. Fiction Writing Is Like Gossip. It's Not Malicious Gossip, But It's Gossip.

Sometimes I Ask Myself If Writing Novels Is Even Respectable.

I Did Think Reviewers Were Supposed To Be Polite About Story Collections - Collections Are Rather Delicate Creatures In The Literary Environment - But Not Everybody Got This Memo, I Guess.