A Plot Begins When Somebody Has Something

To Take Possession Of A City Of Which You Are Not A Native You Must First Fall In Love There.

All One Wants To Do Is Make A Small, Finished, Polished, Burnished, Beautiful Object . . . I Mean, That's All One Wants To Do. One Has Nothing To Say About The World, Or Society, Or Morals Or Politics Or Anything Else. One Just Wants To Get The Damn Thing Done, You Know? Kafka Had It Right When He Said That The Artist Is The Man Who Has Nothing To Say. It's True. You Get The Thing Done, But You Don't Actually Have Anything To Communicate, Apart From The Object Itself.

What I Was Afraid Of Was My Own Grief, The Weight Of It, The Ineluctable Corrosive Force Of It, And The Stark Awareness I Had Of Being, For The First Time In My Life, Entirely Alone, A Crusoe Shipwrecked And Stranded In The Limitless Wastes Of A Boundless And Indifferent Ocean.

These Days I Must Take The World In Small And Carefully Measured Doses. It Is A Sort Of Homeopathic Cure I Am Undergoing, Though I Am Not Certain What This Cure Is Meant To Mend. Perhaps I Am Learning To Live Amongst The Living Again. Practising, I Mean. But No, That Is Not It. Being Here Is Just A Way Of Not Being Anywhere.

No Two Things The Same, The Equals Sign A Scandal.