Writing Is The Most Solitary Of Arts.

It's Impossible To Read A Distinctive Stylist Like Faulkner, Joyce, Kafka, Mann, Woolf, James - And Many More - Without Wanting To Write, However Entirely Different One's Writing Will Be.

Probably Nothing Serious Or Worthwhile Can Be Accomplished Without One's Willingness To Be Alone For Sustained Periods Of Time, Which Is Not To Say That One Must Live Alone, Obsessively.

It Is Only Through Disruptions And Confusion That We Grow, Jarred Out Of Ourselves By The Collision Of Someone Else's Private World With Our Own.

Novels Usually Evolve Out Of 'character.' Characters Generate Stories, And The Shape Of A Novel Is Entirely Imagined But Should Have An Aesthetic Coherence.

The Books I Read I Do Enjoy, Very Much; Otherwise I Wouldn't Read Them. Most Of Them Are For Review, For The New York Review Of Books, And Substantial.