The Novel Remains For Me

Alice Malloy Had Dark, Stringy Hair, And Even Her Husband, Who Loved Her More Than He Knew, Was Sometimes Reminded By Her Lean Face Of A Tenement Doorway On A Rainy Day, For Her Countenance Was Long, Vacant, And Weakly Lighted, A Passage For The Gentle Transports And Miseries Of The Poor.

A Collection Of Short Stories Is Generally Thought To Be A Horrendous Clinker; An Enforced Courtesy For The Elderly Writer Who Wants To Display The Trophies Of His Youth, Along With His Trout Flies.

To Disguise Nothing, To Conceal Nothing, To Write About Those Things That Are Closest To Our Pain, Our Happiness; To Write About Our Sexual Clumsiness, The Agonies Of Tantalus, The Depth Of Our Discouragement-what We Glimpse In Our Dreams-our Despair. To Write About The Foolish Agonies Of Anxiety, The Refreshment Of Our Strength When These Are Ended; To Write About Our Painful Search For Self, Jeopardized By A Stranger In The Post Office, A Half-seen Face In A Train Window, To Write About The Continents And Populations Of Our Dreams, About Love And Death, Good And Evil, The End Of The World.

The Deep Joy We Take In The Company Of People With Whom We Have Just Recently Fallen In Love Is Undisguisable.

Homesickness Is . . . Absolutely Nothing. Fifty Percent Of The People In The World Are Homesick All The Time. . . . You Don't Really Long For Another Country. You Long For Something In Yourself That You Don't Have, Or Haven't Been Able To Find.