Only The Opium Eater Truly Understands The

Who Reads Short Stories? One Is Asked, And I Like To Think That They Are Read By Men And Women In The Dentist's Office, Waiting To Be Called To The Chair; They Are Read On Transcontinental Plane Trips Instead Of Watching Banal And Vulgar Films Spin Out The Time Between Our Coasts; They Are Read By Discerning And Well-informed Men And Women Who Seem To Feel That Narrative Fiction Can Contribute To Our Understanding Of One Another And The Sometimes Bewildering World Around Us.

All Things Of The Sea Belong To Venus; Pearls And Shells And Alchemists' Gold And Kelp And The Riggish Smell Of Neap Tides, The Inshore Green, And Purple Further Out And The Joy Of Distances And The Roar Of Falling Masonry, All These Are Hers, But She Doesn't Come Out Of The Sea For All Of Us.

How Can A People Who Do Not Mean To Understand Death Hope To Understand Love, And Who Will Sound The Alarm?

Fiction Must Compete With First-rate Reporting. If You Cannot Write A Story That Is Equal To A Factual Account Of Battle In The Streets Or Demonstrations, Then You Can't Write A Story.

Sometimes The Easiest-seeming Stories To A Reader Are The Hardest Kind To Write.