Reading Is A Majority Skill But A

Wisdom Consists Partly In Not Pretending Anymore, In Discarding Artifice.

The Writer Has Little Control Over Personal Temperament, None Over Historical Moment, And Is Only Partly In Charge Of His Or Her Own Aesthetic.

You Can't Have A Novel Without Real, Believable People, And Once You Get Into Either Too Theoretical A Novel Or Too Philosophical A Novel, You Get Into The Dangers That The French Novel Has Discovered In The Past 50 Or 60 Years. And You Get Into A Sort Of Aridity. No, You Have To Have Real, Identifiable People To Whom The Reader Reacts In A Way As If They Were Real People.

To Own A Certain Book - And To Choose It Without Help - Is To Define Yourself.

Sometimes I Think The Purpose Of Life Is To Reconcile Us To Its Eventual Loss By Wearing Us Down, By Proving, However Long It Takes, That Life Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be.