The Writer, Like The Murderer, Needs A

Writing Cannot Be Done In A State Of Desirelessness.

This Is What It Is The Business Of The Artist To Do. Art Is Theft, Art Is Armed Robbery, Art Is Not Pleasing Your Mother.

Poets And Novelists And Playwrights Make Themselves, Against Terrible Resistances, Give Over What The Rest Of Us Keep Safely Locked Within Our Hearts.

The ‘i’ Character In Journalism Is Almost Pure Invention. Unlike The ‘i’ Of Autobiography, Who Is Meant To Be Seen As A Representation Of The Writer, The ‘i’ Of Journalism Is Connected To The Writer Only In A Tenuous Way—the Way, Say, That Superman Is Connected To Clark Kent. The Journalistic ‘i’ Is An Overreliable Narrator, A Functionary To Whom Crucial Tasks Of Narration And Argument And Tone Have Been Entrusted, An Ad Hoc Creation, Like The Chorus Of Greek Tragedy. He Is An Emblematic Figure, An Embodiment Of The Idea Of The Dispassionate Observer Of Life.

Society Mediates Between The Extremes Of, On The One Hand, Intolerably Strict Morality And, On The Other, Dangerously Anarchic Permissiveness Through An Unspoken Agreement Whereby We Are Given Leave To Bend The Rules Of The Strictest Morality, Provided We Do So Quietly And Discreetly. Hypocrisy Is The Grease That Keeps Society Functioning In An Agreeable Way, By Allowing For Human Fallibility And Reconciling The Seemingly Irreconcilable Human Needs For Order And Pleasure.