... If You Have Nothing,

Men Are Unwise And Curiously Planned.

I Think I Am At The End Of A Certain Phase Of My Life. What I'm On The Lookout For Now Is The Unexpected, For Things That Come From Outside And That I Never Thought Might Happen. Sometimes You Have To Watch For Them So You Don't Automatically Say No To The New, Simply Because You're In The Habit Of Saying No To Everything That Comes Along.

There Was A Time When Young People Respected Learning And Literature And Now They Don't.

Ideally, What Should Be Said To Every Child, Repeatedly, Throughout His Or Her School Life Is Something Like This: "you Are In The Process Of Being Indoctrinated. We Have Not Yet Evolved A System Of Education That Is Not A System Of Indoctrination. We Are Sorry, But It Is The Best We Can Do."

The Point Is, That The Function Of The Novel Seems To Be Changing; It Has Become An Outpost Of Journalism; We Read Novels For Information About Areas Of Life We Don't Know - Nigeria, South Africa, The American Army, A Coal-mining Village, Coteries In Chelsea, Etc. We Read To Find Out What Is Going On. One Novel In Five Hundred Or A Thousand Has The Quality A Novel Should Have To Make It A Novel - The Quality Of Philosophy.