For The First Time We

Perfection. Excellence. What A Passionate Lover. But Once Having Tasted The Lips Of Excellence, Once Having Given Oneself To Its Perfection, How Dreary And Burdensome And Filled With Anomie Are The Remainder Of One's Waking Hours Trapped In The Shackled Lock-step Of The Merely Ordinary, The Barely Acceptable, The Just Okay And Not A Stroke Better.

The Trap Into Which All Writers Have, Will, Or Should Fall Into, Of Writing The Great American Watchamacallit, Is Such An Uncluttered And Inviting One That From Time To Time I'm Sure Even The Greatest Have To Pull Themselves Up Short By The Shift Key To Remind Themselves That It Is Story First That They Should Write.

They Change Scapegoats At The Networks More Regularly Than Some People Change Socks.

I Have But Nothing To Say To Young Girls. They're Fine To Look At, In The Way I Would Look At A Case Filled With Shang Dynasty Glazes, But Expecting To Carry On A Conversation With The Average Teen-aged Young Lady Is Akin To Reading Voltaire To A Cage Filled With Chimpanzees. I'm Certain They Would Feel The Same Alienation For Me. I Can Live With That Knowledge.

It Is Not Merely Enough To Love Literature If One Wishes To Spend One's Life As A Writer. It Is A Dangerous Undertaking On The Most Primitive Level. For, It Seems To Me, The Act Of Writing With Serious Intent Involves Enormous Personal Risk. It Entails The Ongoing Courage For Self-discovery. It Means One Will Walk Forever On The Tightrope, With Each New Step Presenting The Possiblity Of Learning A Truth About Oneself That Is Too Terrible To Bear.