It's Nervous Work. The State

... One Doesn't Really Profit From Experience; One Merely Learns To Predict The Next Mistake.

In The Circle Where I Was Raised, I Knew Of No One Knowledgeable In The Visual Arts, No One Who Regularly Attended Musical Performances, And Only Two Adults Other Than My Teachers Who Spoke Without Embarrassment Of Poetry And Literature — Both Of These Being Women. As Far As I Can Recall, I Never Heard A Man Refer To A Good Or A Great Book. I Knew No One Who Had Mastered, Or Even Studied, Another Language From Choice. And Our Articulate, Conscious Life Proceeded Without Acknowledgement Of The Preceding Civilisations Which Had Produced It.

In Thoughts One Keeps A Reserve Of Hope, In Spite Of Everything. You Cannot Say Good-bye In Imagination. That Is Something You Can Only Do In Actuality.

Sometimes, Surely, Truth Is Closer To Imagination Or To Intelligence, To Love Than To Fact? To Be Accurate Is Not To Be Right.

Americans' Great And Secret Fear Is That America May Turn Out To Be A Phenomenon Rather Than A Civilization.