I Think Writers Are Very Anxious.

The Only Thing That I Was Equipped For With My Very Mediocre College Arts Degree Was To Get A Job In Teaching.

I Suppose There Must Be Idiots Who Dream Of Signing Deals With Publishers While Fully Intending To Drink Martinis In Cool Bars Or Ride Around On Skateboards. But The Actual Writers I Know Are Experts In Neurotic Self-torture. Every Page Of Writing Is The Result Of A Thousand Tiny Decisions And Desperate Acts Of Will.

To Slide Into The Domed Reading Room At Ten Each Morning, Specially In Summer, Off The Hot Street Outside, Was A Sensation As Delicious As Dropping Into The Water Off The Concrete Edge Of The Fitzroy Baths.

It's Disturbing At My Age To Look At A Young Woman's Destructive Behaviour And Hear The Echoes Of It, Of One's Own Destructiveness In Youth.

Writers Seem To Me To Be People Who Need To Retire From Social Life And Do A Lot Of Thinking About What's Happened - Almost To Calm Themselves.