Time...give Us Enough Time And Our Best-supported

Does Character Develop Over Time? In Novels, Of Course It Does: Otherwise There Wouldn't Be Much Of A Story. But In Life? I Sometimes Wonder. Our Attitudes And Opinions Change, We Develop New Habits And Eccentricities; But That's Something Different, More Like Decoration. Perhaps Character Resembles Intelligence, Except That Character Peaks A Little Later: Between Twenty And Thirty, Say. And After That, We're Just Stuck With What We've Got. We're On Our Own. If So, That Would Explain A Lot Of Lives, Wouldn't It? And Also - If This Isn't Too Grand A Word - Our Tragedy.

Though Why Should We Expect Age To Mellow Us? If It Isn't Life's Business To Reward Merit, Why Should It Be Life's Business To Give Us Warm Comfortable Feelings Towards Its End? What Possible Evolutionary Purpose Could Nostalgia Serve?

The Writer Must Be Universal In Sympathy And An Outcast By Nature: Only Then Can He See Clearly.

Writers Of Either Gender Ought To Be Able To Do The Opposite Sex-that's One Basic Test Of Competence, After All.

When You Are In Your Twenties, Even If You're Confused And Uncertain About Your Aims And Purposes, You Have A Strong Sense Of What Life Itself Is, And Of What You In Life Are, And Might Become. Later.. Later There Is More Uncertainty, More Overlapping, More Backtracking, More False Memories. Back Then, You Can Remember Your Short Life In Its Entirety. Later, The Memory Becomes A Thing Of Shreds And Patches.