What Is Life If Not

To Escape The Power Of The Unknown, To Prove To Yourself That You Don't Believe In It, You Accept Its Spells. Like An Avowed Atheist Who Sees The Devil At Night, You Reason: He Certainly Doesn't Exist; This Is Therefore An Illusion, Perhaps A Result Of Indigestion. But The Devil Is Sure That He Exists, And Believes In His Upside-down Theology. What, Then, Will Frighten Him? You Make The Sign Of The Cross, And He Vanishes In A Puff Of Brimstone.

Naturally, Everything Depends On One's Background Books And On What One Is Looking For.

A Newspaper Can Follow The Compulsions, The Desires Of The Readers. Take The English Evening Newspapers - They Are Following The Readers' Desires When They Are Interested Only In The Royal Family Gossip. But Even The Most Objective, Serious Newspaper In The World Designs The Way In Which The Reader Could Or Should Think. That's Unavoidable.

I Wrote A Novel Because I Had A Yen To Do It. I Believe This Is Sufficient Reason To Set Out To Tell A Story.

The Order That Our Mind Imagines Is Like A Net, Or Like A Ladder, Built To Attain Something. But Afterward You Must Throw The Ladder Away, Because You Discover That, Even If It Was Useful, It Was Meaningless.