The Novel As We Knew It In

Loyalty, Signor Molteni, Not Love. Penelope Is Loyal To Ulysses But We Do Not Know How Far She Loved Him...and As You Know People Can Sometimes Be Absolutely Loyal Without Loving. In Certain Cases, In Fact, Loyalty Is Form Of Vengeance, Of Black-mail, Of Recovering One's Self-respect. Loyalty, Not Love.

Because The World To-day Is So Constructed That No One Can Do What He Would Like To Do, And He Is Forced, Instead, To Do What Others Wish Him To Do. Because The Question Of Money Always Intrudes—into What We Do, Into What We Are, Into What We Wish To Become, Into Our Work, Into Our Highest Aspirations, Even Into Our Relations With The People We Love!

This Thought Strengthened In Me My Belief That All Men, Without Exception, Deserve To Be Pitied, If Only Because They Are Alive.

...my Boredom Might Be Described As A Malady Affecting External Objects And Consisting Of A Withering Process; An Almost Instantaneous Loss Of Vitality--just As Though One Saw A Flower Change In A Few Seconds From A Bud To Decay And Dust.

Yes, One Uses What One Knows, But Autobiography Means Something Else. I Should Never Be Able To Write A Real Autobiography; I Always End By Falsifying And Fictionalizing—i’m A Liar, In Fact. That Means I’m A Novelist, After All. I Write About What I Know.