A Writer Takes Earnest Measures

People Stress The Violence. That's The Smallest Part Of It. Football Is Brutal Only From A Distance. In The Middle Of It There's A Calm, A Tranquility. The Players Accept Pain. There's A Sense Of Order Even At The End Of A Running Play With Bodies Strewn Everywhere. When The Systems Interlock, There's A Satisfaction To The Game That Can't Be Duplicated. There's A Harmony.

I Never Wanted To Change The World. Norman Mailer Wanted To, He Set Himself The Task Of Changing The Consciousness Of Our Age. And I Think He Came Pretty Close, In The 1960s, To Actually Managing To Do It. But Me? No, No, I Never Wanted Anything Like That. I'm Not Maileresque.

Certainly I've Never Tried To Imagine What The Future Will Hold. It's A Hopeless Endeavor To Try To Do Such A Thing.

There's Always A Period Of Curious Fear Between The First Sweet-smelling Breeze And The Time When The Rain Comes Cracking Down.

Every Advance In Knowledge And Technique Is Matched By A New Kind Of Death, A New Strain. Death Adapts, Like A Viral Agent.