Alex Like Groweth Up, Oh Yes.

A Work Of Fiction Should Be, For Its Author, A Journey Into The Unknown, And The Prose Should Convey The Difficulties Of The Journey.

Art Is Rare And Sacred And Hard Work, And There Ought To Be A Wall Of Fire Around It.

A Man Can Write One Book That Can Be Great, But This Doesn't Make Him A Great Writer-just The Writer Of A Great Book. . . I Think A Writer Has To Extend Very Widely, As Well As Plunge Very Deep, To Be A Great Novelist.

The Aura Of The Theocratic Death Penalty For Adultery Still Clings To America, Even Outside New England, And Multiple Divorce, Which Looks To The European Like Serial Polygamy, Is The Moral Solution To The Problem Of The Itch. Love Comes Into It Too, Of Course, But In Europe We Tend To See Marital Love As An Eternity Which Encompasses Hate And Also Indifference: When We Promise To Love We Really Mean That We Promise To Honor A Contract. Americans, Seeming To Take Marriage With Not Enough Seriousness, Are Really Taking Love And Sex With Too Much.

A Character, To Be Acceptable As More Than A Chess Piece, Has To Be Ignorant Of The Future, Unsure About The Past, And Not At All Sure Of What He's Supposed To Be Doing.