Pirates Have Always Fascinated Me.

If I Ever Get To 100, I'd Want To Be Filled With Wonder And Wild, Adolescent, Wide-eyed Interest In Newness. So Let's Keep The Flame Burning. Let's Stop Thinking Everyone Over 29, Or 49, Has To Be Reinforced By Concrete.

Im Writing What Comes Into My Head, Or Through Me, Or From Somewhere Else, And It Is The Most Extraordinary, Exciting Thing. I Love It, And Im Very Greedy, And I Really Enjoy It!

I Must Suppose That Reading Wonderful Writers May, Inadvertently, Teach An Avid Reader A Great Deal -- Not Only About Life And Other Matters, But About How To Write. Therefore Doubtless I Have Benefited From Frequent Immersions In The Glowing Genius Of Others. It Would Be Nice To Think So. (i Do Actually Think So). But To Improve My Skills Will Never Be The Prompting Force Of My Reading -- That's Just Literary Lust.

I Held Out My Book. It Was Precious To Me, As Were All The Things I'd Written; Even Where I Despised Their Inadequacy There Was Not One I Would Disown. Each Tore Its Way From My Entrails. Each Had Shortened My Life, Killed Me With Its Own Special Little Death.

The So-called Real World. Human Misery And Sadness. Blind Politics And General Cruelty.