I Don't Think Two People

Dear Leonard. To Look Life In The Face. Always To Look Life In The Face And To Know It For What It Is. At Last To Know It. To Love It For What It Is, And Then, To Put It Away. Leonard. Always The Years Between Us. Always The Years. Always The Love. Always The Hours.

Oh, All You Immigrants And Visionaries, What Do You Hope To Find Here, Who Do You Hope To Become?

You Grow Weary Of Being Treated As The Enemy Simply Because You Are Not Young Anymore; Because You Dress Unexceptionally.

Maybe It’s Not, In The End, The Virtues Of Others That So Wrenches Our Hearts As It Is The Sense Of Almost Unbearably Poignant Recognition When We See Them At Their Most Base, In Their Sorrow And Gluttony And Foolishness. You Need The Virtues, Too—some Sort Of Virtues—but We Don’t Care About Emma Bovary Or Anna Karenina Or Raskolnikov Because They’re Good. We Care About Them Because They’re Not Admirable, Because They’re Us, And Because Great Writers Have Forgiven Them For It.

Here's A Secret. Many Novelists, If They Are Pressed And If They Are Being Honest, Will Admit That The Finished Book Is A Rather Rough Translation Of The Book They'd Intended To Write.