People Do Not Choose A Career; The

Talk Is A Pure Art. Its Only Limits Are The Patience Of Listeners Who, When They Get Tired, Can Always Pay For Their Coffee Or Change It With A Friendly Waiter And Walk Out.

Shakespeare Wouldn't Have Been Any Good If He'd Stayed In Stratford. He Had To Go To London To Be Bathed In The Full Current Of The Renaissance.

Men Who Have Lost Their Conviction Of What Is Good And What Is Bad Find Themselves Without A Sextant To Check Their Position By. We Are In The Position Of A Man With An Elaborate Camping Kit Who Finds Himself Lost In The Woods Without His Matches; To Kindle A Fire He Has To Resort To The Stratagems Of The Caveman. We Fall Back Through Generations Into The Oldest Terrors And Confusions Of The Race.

A Novel Is A Commodity That Fulfills A Certain Need; People Need To Buy Daydreams Like They Need To Buy Ice Cream Or Aspirin Or Gin. They Even Need To Buy A Pinch Of Intellectual Catnip Now And Then To Liven Up Their Thoughts.

Hemingway Always Used To Bawl Me Out For Including So Much Topical Stuff. He Always Claimed That Was A Great Mistake, That In Fifty Years Nobody Would Understand. He May Have Been Right; It's Getting To Be True.