My Hole Is Warm And Full Of

The Clock Ticked With Empty Urgency, As Though Trying To Catch Up With The Time. In The Street A Siren Howled.

For, Like Almost Everyone Else In Our Country, I Started Out With My Share Of Optimism. I Believed In Hard Work And Progress And Action, But Now, After First Being 'for' Society And Then 'against' It, I Assign Myself No Rank Or Any Limit, And Such An Attitude Is Very Much Against The Trend Of The Times. But My World Has Become One Of Infinite Possibilities. What A Phrase - Still It's A Good Phrase And A Good View Of Life, And A Man Shouldn't Accept Any Other; That Much I've Learned Underground. Until Some Gang Succeeds In Putting The World In A Strait Jacket, Its Definition Is Possibility.

By And Large, The Critics And Readers Gave Me An Affirmed Sense Of My Identity As A Writer. You Might Know This Within Yourself, But To Have It Affirmed By Others Is Of Utmost Importance. Writing Is, After All, A Form Of Communication.

Eclecticism Is The Word. Like A Jazz Musician Who Creates His Own Style Out Of The Styles Around Him, I Play By Ear.

We Don't All Dig Shakespeare Uniformly, Or Even 'little Red Riding Hood.' The Understanding Of Art Depends Finally Upon One's Willingness To Extend One's Humanity And One's Knowledge Of Human Life.