Eventually The Writing Takes Time. What I

Nothing Has A More Sinister Effect On Art Than The Artist's Desire To Prove That He's Good. The Terrible Temptation Of Idealism! You Must Achieve Mastery Over Your Idealism, Over Your Virtue As Well As Over Your Vice, Aesthetic Mastery Over Everything That Drives You To Write In The First Place - Your Outrage, Your Politics, Your Grief, Your Love!

Is An Intelligent Human Being Likely To Be Much More Than A Large-scale Manufacturer Of Misunderstanding?

It Isn't That You Subordinate Your Ideas To The Force Of The Facts In Autobiography But That You Construct A Sequence Of Stories To Bind Up The Facts With A Persuasive Hypothesis That Unravels Your History's Meaning.

To Become A Celebrity Is To Become A Brand Name. There Is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, And Philip Roth. Ivory Is The Soap That Floats; Rice Krispies The Breakfast Cereal That Goes Snap-crackle-pop; Philip Roth The Jew Who Masturbates With A Piece Of Liver.

People Were Standing Up Everywhere Shouting, "this Is Me! This Is Me!" Every Time You Looked At Them They Stood Up And Told You Who They Were, And The Truth Of It Was That They Had No More Idea Who Or What They Were Than He Had. They Believed Their Flashing Signs, Too. They Ought To Be Standing Up And Shouting, "this Isn't Me! This Isn't Me!" They Would If They Had Any Decency. "this Isn't Me!" Then You Might Know How To Proceed Through The Flashing Bullshit Of This World.