If You Had To Summarize The Old

She Closed One Eye And Looked At Me And Said, "i Know There Is A Blessing In This Somewhere." It Is Worth Living Long Enough To Outlast Whatever Sense Of Grievance You May Acquire. Another Reason Why You Must Be Careful Of Your Health.

Never, Ever Condescend To The Reader. Assume You Are Writing For Someone Better And Smarter Than You Are. This Will Protect You From Conventionalism, Faddishness, And Cliché.

Two Questions I Can't Really Answer About Fiction Are 1) Where It Comes From, And 2) Why We Need It. But That We Do Create It And Also Crave It Is Beyond Dispute.

She Conceived Of Life As A Road Down Which One Traveled, An Easy Enough Road Through A Broad Country, And That One's Destination Was There From The Very Beginning, A Measured Distance Away, Standing In The Ordinary Light Like Some Plain House Where One Went In And Was Greeted By Respectable People And Was Shown To A Room Where Everything One Had Ever Lost Or Put Aside Was Gathered Together, Waiting.

We Have Opted For Petty Determinisms - Childhood Trauma, Genetic Inheritance, Social Conditioning, Etc. - That Have Made Us Comparatively Passive. We Seem To Prefer To Find Excuses - Which Are Really Nothing More Than The Embrace Of Determinism, A Sort Of Stockholm Syndrome Relative To Whatever We Can Claim As Limitation. I Am Fascinated By The More Enabling Self-understanding. It Has Helped Me To Find My Way Out Of The Cloying Comforts That Are Offered By Prevalent Psychological Models.