Star Wars Is Adolescent Nonsense; Close Encounters

It Is Not Merely Enough To Love Literature If One Wishes To Spend One's Life As A Writer. It Is A Dangerous Undertaking On The Most Primitive Level. For, It Seems To Me, The Act Of Writing With Serious Intent Involves Enormous Personal Risk. It Entails The Ongoing Courage For Self-discovery. It Means One Will Walk Forever On The Tightrope, With Each New Step Presenting The Possiblity Of Learning A Truth About Oneself That Is Too Terrible To Bear.

I Think Art Must Be Tough! I Think Art Has To Be Hard. I Don't Think It Should Be Easy. I Think It Should Take Foot-pounds Of Energy To Produce That Art, Otherwise We Would Have More Mediocre Writers, And We Don't Have Room For Any More Mediocrity In The World. There's Already Enough Of It Being Visited On Us Night And Day Through The Internet, And Through Television, And Through Politics.

For The First Time We Have A Weapon That Nobody Has Used For Thirty Years. This Gives Me Great Hope For The Human Race.

Everybody Has A Talent, Whether It's Scrapbooking, Or Kite-flying, Or Brain Surgery, Or Writing, Everybody Has A Talent. And If They Discover It, And They Turn It To Their Purposes And Make A Living Out Of It, Then They Become Not "that Person," But They Become "that Writer" Or "that Doctor" Or "that Supervisor."

I Know That Pain Is The Most Important Thing In The Universes. Greater Than Survival, Greater Than Love, Greater Even Than The Beauty It Brings About. For Without Pain, There Can Be No Pleasure. Without Sadness, There Can Be No Happiness. Without Misery There Can Be No Beauty. And Without These, Life Is Endless, Hopeless, Doomed And Damned. Adult. You Have Become Adult.