The Writer Must Be Universal In Sympathy

Life … Is A Bit Like Reading. … If All Your Responses To A Book Have Already Been Duplicated And Expanded Upon By A Professional Critic, Then What Point Is There To Your Reading? Only That It’s Yours. Similarly, Why Live Your Life? Because It’s Yours. But What If Such An Answer Becomes Less And Less Convincing?

The More You Learn, The Less You Fear.

Life Is Like Invading Russia. A Blitz Start, Massed Shakos, Plumes Dancing Like A Flustered Henhouse; A Period Of Svelte Progress Recorded In Ebullient Despatches As The Enemy Falls Back; Then The Beginning Of A Long, Morale-sapping Trudge With Rations Getting Shorter And The First Snowflakes Upon Your Face. The Enemy Burns Moscow And You Yield To General January, Whose Fingernails Are Very Icicles. Bitter Retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually You Fall Beneath A Boy-gunner's Grapeshot While Crossing Some Polish River Not Even Marked On Your General's Map.

Perhaps Love Is Essential Because It's Unnecessary.

We Must Be Precise With Love, Its Language And Its Gestures. If It Is To Save Us, We Must Look At It As Clearly As We Should Learn To Look At Death