It's No Disgrace To Be A Private,

I See That I've Become A Really Bad Correspondent. It's Not That I Don't Think Of You. You Come Into My Thoughts Often. But When You Do It Appears To Me That I Owe You A Particularly Grand Letter. And So You End In The "warehouse Of Good Intentions": "can't Do It Now." "then Put It On Hold." This Is One's Strategy For Coping With Old Age, And With Death--because One Can't Die With So Many Obligations In Storage. Our Clever Species, So Fertile And Resourceful In Denying Its Weaknesses.

Only Self-hatred Could Lead Him To Ruin Himself Because His Heart Was "broken.

We Are All Such Accidents. We Do Not Make Up History And Culture. We Simply Appear, Not By Our Own Choice. We Make What We Can Of Our Condition With The Means Available. We Must Accept The Mixture As We Find It - The Impurity Of It, The Tragedy Of It, The Hope Of It.

A Novel Is Balanced Between A Few True Impressions And The Multitude Of False Ones That Make Up Most Of What We Call Life.

I Don't Like To Write From A Flat, Cold Position. You Must Like What You're Doing Very Much Or Like The People -- Either Like Them Or Hate Them. You Can't Be Indifferent.