Self-pity” Is Just Sadness, I Think, In

I Took A Little Celebrational Nap.

In Almost Every Thriller, A Point Is Reached When Someone, Usually Calling From A Phone Booth, Telephones With A Vital Piece Of Information, Which He Cannot Divulge By Phone. By The Time The Hero Arrives At The Place Where They Had Arranged To Meet, The Caller Is Dead, Or Too Near Death To Tell. There Is Never An Explanation For The Reluctance Of The Caller To Impart His Message In The First Place.

Being Neurotic Seemed To Be A Kind Of Wild Card, An All-purpose Explanation.

Intelligent People, Caught At Anything, Denied It. Faced With Evidence Of Having Denied It Falsely, People Said They Had Not Done It And Had Not Lied About It, And Didn't Remember It, But If They Had Done It, Or Lied About It, They Would Have Done It And Misspoken Themselves About It In An Interest So Much Higher As To Alter The Nature Of Doing And Lying Altogether.

Nice Criticism Is Good When It Tells You Something. A Lot Of Negative "criticism" Isn't Criticism At All: It's Just Nasty, "writerly" Cliché And Invective.