For The Last Third Of

She Was Thirty-nine. No, She Did Not Envy Her Eighteen-year- Old Self At All. But She Did Envy, Envied Every Day More Bitterly, That Young Girl's Genuine Independence, Largeness, Scope, And Courage.

My Father Was In The First World War.

On The News Two Dozen Events Of Fantastically Different Importance Are Announced In Exactly The Same Tone Of Voice. The Voice Doesn't Discriminate Between A Divorce, A Horse Race, A War In The Middle East.

This World Is Run By People Who Know How To Do Things. They Know How Things Work. They Are Equipped. Up There, There's A Layer Of People Who Run Everything. But We - We're Just Peasants. We Don't Understand What's Going On, And We Can't Do Anything.

I Think A Writer's Job Is To Provoke Questions. I Like To Think That If Someone's Read A Book Of Mine, They've Had - I Don't Know What - The Literary Equivalent Of A Shower. Something That Would Start Them Thinking In A Slightly Different Way Perhaps. That's What I Think Writers Are For. This Is What Our Function Is.