I Pity People Who Do Not Care

When I Read A Story, I Relive The Moment From Which It Sprang. A Scene Burned Itself Into Me, A Building Magnetized Me, A Mood Orseason Of Nature's Penetrated Me, History Suddenly Appeared To Me In Some Tiny Act, Or A Face Had Begun To Haunt Me Before I Glanced At It.

One's Sentiments -- Call Them That -- One's Fidelities Are So Instinctive That One Hardly Knows They Exist: Only When They Are Betrayed Or, Worse Still, When One Betrays Them Does One Realize Their Power.

Also, Perhaps Children Are Sterner Than Grown-up People In Their Refusal To Suffer, In Their Refusal, Even, To Feel At All.

Dialogue Must Appear Realistic Without Being So. Actual Realism-the Lifting, As It Were, Of Passages From A Stenographer's Take-down Of A 'real Life' Conversation-would Be Disruptive. Of What? Of The Illusion Of The Novel. In 'real Life' Everything Is Diluted; In The Novel Everything Is Condensed.

Every Love Has A Poetic Relevance Of Its Own; Each Love Brings To Light Only What To It Is Relevant. Outside Lies The Junk-yard Of What Does Not Matter.