I Felt In Him What Women Feel

I Began To Understand That There Were Certain Talkers - Certain Girls - Whom People Liked To Listen To, Not Because Of What They, The Girls, Had To Say, But Because Of The Delight They Took In Saying It. A Delight In Themselves, A Shine On Their Faces, A Conviction That Whatever They Were Telling About Was Remarkable And That They Themselves Could Not Help But Give Pleasure. There Might Be Other People - People Like Me - Who Didn't Concede This, But That Was Their Loss. And People Like Me Would Never Be The Audience These Girls Were After, Anyway.

I Used To Feel For Years And Years And Years That I Was Very Remiss Not To Have Written A Novel And I Would Question People Who Wrote Novels And Try To Find Out How They Did It And How They Had Got Past Page 30. Then, With The Approach Of Old Age, I Began To Just Think: “well, Lucky I Can Do Anything At All.

The Images, The Language, Of Pornography, And Romance Are Alike; Monotonous And Mechanically Seductive, Quickly Leading To Despair.

I Felt In Him What Women Feel In Men, Something So Tender, Swollen, Tyrannical, Absurd; I Would Never Take The Consequences Of Interfering With It.

Peoples Lives, In Jubilee As Elsewhere, Were Dull, Simple, Amazing, Unfathomable-deep Caves Paved With Kitchen Linoleum. . . . What I Wanted [to Write Down] Was Every Last Thing, Every Layer Of Speech And Thought, Stroke Of Light On Bark Or Walls, Every Smell, Pothole, Pain, Crack, Delusion, Held Still And Held Together-radiant, Everlasting.