People Don't Help Much.

Don't Get Me Wrong. I Have Nothing Against This As A Method, But It Is Not What English Writers Do.

The Greatest Pleasure Is Not - Say - Sex Or Geometry. It Is Just Understanding. And If You Can Get People To Understand Their Own Humanity - Well, That's The Job Of The Writer.

Simon Became Inarticulate In His Effort To Express Mankind's Essential Illness.

When You Take A Child Who's Hollering Like Hell, Sit Him On Your Knee, And Say "once Upon A Time", You Stop Him Hollering. As Long As You Go On Telling Him A Story, He Will Listen. Novelists Who Neglect This Fundamental Effect Do So At Their Peril. They Become What Is Known As The Experimental Novelist, And An Experimental Novel Is Not Really A Novel At All.

Maybe There Is A Beast… Maybe It's Only Us.