When You Aren't Sincere You Need To

It Is What We Are Forced To Do That Forms Our Character, Not What We Do Of Our Own Free Will.

There Are Many Reasons For Keeping A Diary: To Make A Note Of Facts That One Considers Important; To Open One's Heart, To Give Vent To One's Feelings, To Make Confessions; From The Instinct Of Economy Which Sometimes Encourages A Writer To Make Good Use Of Even The Smallest Crumbs Of His Life, So That He May Have One More Book To Publish; Or Again From Vanity And Self- Satisfaction.

I Like To Compare My Method With That Of Painters Centuries Ago, Proceeding From Layer To Layer.

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.

An Uncertain Evil Causes Anxiety Because, At The Bottom Of One's Heart, One Goes On Hoping Till The Last Moment That It May Not Be True; A Certain Evil, On The Other Hand, Instills, For A Time, A Kind Of Dreary Tranquillity.