Fiction Is Experimentation; When It Ceases To

...the Sounds Next Door Served As A Kind Of Trip Wire: I Seemed To Stumble And Fall On My Face, Skinning And Bruising Myself Here And There And Scattering My Emotional And Intellectual Possessions. There Was No Point In Pretending That I Had Not Fallen, For When We Are Stretched Out In The Dirt We Must Pick Ourselves Up And Brush Off Our Clothes. This Then, In A Sense, Is What I Did, Reviewing My Considered Opinions On Marriage, Constancy, Man's Nature, And The Importance Of Love. When I Had Picked Up My Possessions And Repaired My Appearance, I Fell Asleep.

Our Country Is The Best Country In The World. We Are Swimming In Prosperity And Our President Is The Best President In The World. We Have Larger Apples And Better Cotton And Faster And More Beautiful Machines. This Makes Us The Greatest Country In The World. Unemployment Is A Myth. Dissatisfaction Is A Fable. In Preparatory School America Is Beautiful. It Is The Gem Of The Ocean And It Is Too Bad. It Is Bad Because People Believe It All. Because They Become Indifferent. Because They Marry And Reproduce And Vote And They Know Nothing.

For Me, A Page Of Good Prose Is Where One Hears The Rain And The Noise Of Battle. It Has The Power To Give Grief Or Universality That Lends It A Youthful Beauty.

When I Remember My Family, I Always Remember Their Backs. They Were Always Indignantly Leaving Places.

If There Is Anybody I Detest, It Is Weak-minded Sentimentalists-all Those Melancholy People Who, Out Of An Excess Of Sympathy For Others, Miss The Thrill Of Their Own Essence And Drift Through Life Without Identity, Like A Human Fog, Feeling Sorry For Everyone.