Writers Are A Loosely Knit

"the Diagnosis" Had Ten Drafts Of Very Significant Changing, Where I Went Through The Whole Book, Wholesale And Changed Everything. Then The Last Year Or So It Was Making Small Changes. I Would Do Something And Let It Sit For Three Months... Just Brood About And Decide I Needed To Slightly Change Something Here Or There. Or One Character Wasn't Quite Right. But I Think Everybody Goes Through This.

I Think People All Over The Institution Recognize That Different Ways Of Understanding Are Valuable. Artists May Think In A Different Way Than Biologists Or Chemists, But You Can Learn Something From That. It Is True That The Arts At Mit Don't Have The Same Amount Of Funding Or Same Status As The Sciences Or Engineering.

Most People Have Learned To Live In The Moment. The Argument Goes That If The Past Has Uncertain Effect On The Present, There Is No Need To Dwell On The Past. And If The Present Has Little Effect On The Future, Present Actions Need Not Be Weighed For Their Consequence. Rather, Each Act Is An Island In Time, To Be Judged On Its Own. ... It Is A World Of Impulse. It Is A World Of Sincerity. It Is A World In Which Every Word Spoken Speaks Just To That Moment, Every Glance Given Has Only One Meaning.

Children Grow Rapidly, Forget The Centuries-long Embrace From Their Parents, Which To Them Lasted But Seconds. Children Become Adults, Live Far From Their Parents, Live Their Own Houses, Learn Ways Of Their Own, Suffer Pain, Grow Old. Children Curse Their Parents For Their Wrinkled Skin And Hoarse Voices. Those Now Old Children Also Want To Stop Time, But At Another Time. They Want To Freeze Their Own Children At The Center Of Time.

Sadness Is No More Than A Bit Of Acid Transfixed In The Cerebellum.