For The Serious Artist Does Not Satisfy

The Book I Am Best Known For, Or Only Known For, Is A Novel I Am Prepared To Repudiate: Written A Quarter Of A Century Ago, A Jeu D'esprit Knocked Off For Money In Three Weeks, It Became Known As The Raw Material For A Film Which Seemed To Glorify Sex And Violence. The Film Made It Easy For Readers Of The Book To Misunderstand What It Was About, And The Misunderstanding Will Pursue Me Till I Die. I Should Not Have Written The Book Because Of This Danger Of Misinterpretation.

This Truth May Be Handled Either Sinfully Or Profitably; Sinfully As When It Is Treated On Only To Satisfy Curiosity, And To Keep Up A Mere Barren Speculative Dispute.... This Point Of Election... Is Not To Be Agitated In A Verbal And Contentious Way, But In A Saving Way, To Make Us Tremble And To Set Us Upon A More Diligent And Close Striving With God In Prayer, And All Other Duties.

The Possession Of A Book Becomes A Substitute For Reading It.

The Adult Relation To Books Is One Of Absorbing Rather Than Being Absorbed.

Language Exists Less To Record The Actual Than To Liberate The Imagination.