Generalization, Especially Risky Generalization, Is One Of

I Am Afraid I Am One Of Those People Who Continues To Read In The Hope Of Sometime Discovering In A Book A Single—and Singular—piece Of Wisdom So Penetrating, So Soul Stirring, So Utterly Applicable To My Own Life As To Make All The Bad Books I Have Read Seem Well Worth The Countless Hours Spent On Them. My Guess Is That This Wisdom, If It Ever Arrives, Will Do So In The Form Of A Generalization.

Culture Means, I Think, That You Have Widened Your Experience Enough Through Reading And Through Being A Little Bit Thoughtful About These Things That It Has Changed Your Outlook In Some Ways. And Not Necessarily Made You A Better Human Being But Made You See Things.

Political Correctness And So Many Of The Political Fashions Of The Day...could Only Be Perpetrated In Adolescent Minds: Minds, That Is, That Are Trained To Search Out One Thing And One Thing Only...only An Adolescent Would Find It Worthwhile To Devote His Or Her Attention Chiefly To The Hunting Of Offenses, The Possibility Of Slights, Real And Imagined.

For Me Writing Is Foremost A Mode Of Thinking And When It Works Well, An Act Of Discovery

What, Really, Is Wanted From A Neighborhood? Convenience, Certainly, An Absence Of Major Aggravation, To Be Sure. But Perhaps Mostof All, Ideally, What Is Wanted Is A Comfortable Background, A Breathing Space Of Intermission Between The Intensities Of Private Life And The Calculations Of Public Life.