Dresscodes Are For Styleless People.

The Book Was In Her Lap; She Had Read No Further. The Power To Change One’s Life Comes From A Paragraph, A Lone Remark. The Lines That Penetrate Us Are Slender, Like The Flukes That Live In River Water And Enter The Bodies Of Swimmers. She Was Excited, Filled With Strength. The Polished Sentences Had Arrived, It Seemed, Like So Many Other Things, At Just The Right Time. How Can We Imagine What Our Lives Should Be Without The Illumination Of The Lives Of Others?

Amplitude Is A Powerful Quality In Fiction. It Results In Involvement, In Sympathy With The Characters. After A While, A Reader Can't Avoid Being Involved With A Book, Caring About It, Even If It's Not A Particularly Good Book. You're In It, And You're Committed To It.

Happiness Is Often At Its Most Intense When It Is Based On Inequality.

But Knowledge Does Not Protect One. Life Is Contemptuous Of Knowledge; It Forces It To Sit In The Anterooms, To Wait Outside. Passion, Energy, Lies: These Are What Life Admires. Still, Anything Can Be Endured If All Humanity Is Watching. The Martyrs Prove It. We Live In The Attention Of Others. We Turn To It As Flowers To The Sun.

A Writer Writes A Book. People Read It. You Don't Know What They're Reading, Really. You Read A Review And Think, "that Is So Inaccurate. You Can't Have Been Reading My Book With Any Kind Of Attention, Because That Is All Wrong, That's Even The Wrong Name You're Including There." But These Reviewers Have Been Diminished In Importance, The Work Is So Little Respected. If You're Reviewed By A Real Critic, By James Wood Or Louis Menand, Then You Get Something That Is Informed, Interesting, And Highly Articulate. But The Average Review Doesn't Have That Kind Of Depth Anymore.