I Would Rather Be Dead

And It May Be That Love Sometimes Occurs Without Pain Or Misery.

And I Think That's Important, To Know How The Water's Gone Over The Dam Before You Start To Describe It. It Helps To Have Been Over The Dam Yourself.

Was Love Then Like A Bag Of Assorted Sweets Passed Around From Which One Might Choose More Than Once? Some Might Sting The Tongue, Some Invoke Night Perfume. Some Had Centers As Bitter As Gall, Some Blended Honey And Poison, Some Were Quickly Swallowed. And Among The Common Bull's-eyes And Peppermints A Few Rare Ones; One Or Two With Deadly Needles At The Heart, Another That Brought Clam And Gentle Pleasure. Were His Fingers Closing On That One?

I Would Rather Be Dead Than Not Read

What I Find To Be Very Bad Advice Is The Snappy Little Sentence, 'write What You Know.' It Is The Most Tiresome And Stupid Advice That Could Possibly Be Given. If We Write Simply About What We Know We Never Grow. We Don't Develop Any Facility For Languages, Or An Interest In Others, Or A Desire To Travel And Explore And Face Experience Head-on. We Just Coil Tighter And Tighter Into Our Boring Little Selves. What One Should Write About Is What Interests One.