As A Child I Suppose I Was

Most Of The World Was Mad. And The Part That Wasn't Mad Was Angry. And The Part That Wasn't Mad Or Angry Was Just Stupid. I Had No Chance. I Had No Choice. Just Hang On And Wait For The End. It Was Hard Work. It Was The Hardest Work Imaginable.

And Yet Women-good Women--frightened Me Because They Eventually Wanted Your Soul, And What Was Left Of Mine, I Wanted To Keep.

Hell, I'd Even Failed With Women. Three Wives. Nothing Really Wrong Each Time. It All Got Destroyed By Petty Bickering. Railing About Nothing. Getting Pissed-off Over Anything And Everything. Day By Day, Year By Year, Grinding. Instead Of Helping Each Other You Just Sliced Away, Picked At This Or That. Goading. Endless Goading. It Became A Cheap Contest. And Once You Got Into It, It Became Habitual. You Couldn't Seem To Get Out. You Almost Didn't Want To Get Out. And Then You Did Get Out. All The Way.

I've Found Out Why Men Sign Their Names To Their Works- Not That They Created Them But More Than The Others Did Not.

When I Was Young I Was Depressed All The Time. But Suicide No Longer Seemed A Possibility In My Life. At My Age There Was Very Little Left To Kill. It Was Good To Be Old, No Matter What They Said. It Was Reasonable That A Man Had To Be At Least 50 Years Old Before He Could Write With Anything Like Clarity.