The Craft Of The Novelist Does Lie

My Writing, I Am Prepared To Think, May Be A Substitute For Something I Have Been Born Without - A So-called Normal Relation To Society. My Books Are My Relation To Society.

Only In A House Where One Has Learnt To Be Lonely Does One Have This Solicitude For Things. One's Relation To Them, The Daily Seeing Or Touching, Begins To Become Love, And To Lay One Open To Pain.

...though One Can Be Callous In Ireland One Cannot Be Wholly Opaque Or Material. An Unearthly Disturbance Works In The Spirit; Reason Can Never Reconcile One To Life; Nothing Allays The Wants One Cannot Explain.

What Must Novel Dialogue . . . Really Be And Do? It Must Be Pointed, Intentional, Relevant. It Must Crystallize Situation. It Must Express Character. It Must Advance Plot. During Dialogue, The Characters Confront One Another. The Confrontation Is In Itself An Occasion. Each One Of These Occasions, Throughout The Novel, Is Unique.

For People Who Live On Expectations, To Face Up To Their Realization Is Something Of An Ordeal.