The Growth Of Populations Has In No

All Men Who Read Escape From Something Else Into What Lies Behind The Printed Page; The Quality Of The Dream May Be Argued, But Its Release Has Become A Functional Necessity.

Hammett Gave Murder Back To The Kind Of People That Commit It For Reasons, Not Just To Provide A Corpse; And With The Means At Hand, Not Hand-wrought Dueling Pistols, Curare And Tropical Fish.

Everything A Writer Learns About The Art Or Craft Of Fiction Takes Just A Little Away From His Need Or Desire To Write At All. In The End He Knows All The Tricks And Has Nothing To Say.

The Overall Picture, As The Boys Say, Is Of A Degraded Community Whose Idealism Even Is Largely Fake. The Pretentiousness, The Bogus Enthusiasm, The Constant Drinking, The Incessant Squabbling Over Money, The All-pervasive Agent, The Strutting Of The Big Shots (and Their Usually Utter Incompetence To Achieve Anything They Start Out To Do), The Constant Fear Of Losing All This Fairy Gold And Being The Nothing They Have Never Ceased To Be, The Snide Tricks, The Whole Damn Mess Is Out Of This World.

In Everything That Can Be Called Art There Is A Quality Of Redemption.