The Canadian Kid Who Wants To Grow

If You're Writing A Novel, You're In A Room For Three Or Four Years. There's Not Much Coming In From The Outside.

Each Man Creates God In His Own Image.

There Are Ten Commandments, Right? Well, It's Like An Exam. You Get Eight Out Of Ten, You're Just About Top Of The Class.

In, 1950, At The Age, 19 I Dropped Out Of St. George William College In Montreal, As It Then Was, And Sailed For England On The Franconia. Foolishly, No Arrogantly, Believing I Could Put Canada And Its Picayune Problems Behind Me, Never Dreaming It Would Become The Raw Material Of Most Of My Fiction And Non-fiction. Or That I Would Care So Deeply About Its Surviving Intact.

Actually, When It Comes To Knocking The Canadian Cultural Scene, Nobody Outdoes Canadians, Myself Included. We Are Veritable Masters Of Self-deprecation.