The Novel Does Not Simply Recount Experience,

In 'real Life' Everything Is Diluted; In The Novel Everything Is Condensed.

Nothing Arrives On Paper As It Started, And So Much Arrives That Never Started At All. To Write Is Always To Rave A Little-even If One Did Once Know What One Meant

I Became, And Remain, My Characters' Close And Intent Watcher: Their Director, Never. Their Creator I Cannot Feel That I Was, Or Am.

In My Experience One Thing You Don't Learn From Is Anything Anyone Set Up To Be A Lesson; What You Are To Know You Pick Up As You Go Along.

With No Banal Reassuring Grown-ups Present, With Grown-up Intervention Taken Away, There Is No Limit To The Terror Strange Children Feel Of Each Other, A Terror Life Obscures But Never Ceases To Justify. There Is No End To The Violations Committed By Children On Children, Quietly Talking Alone.