The British And American Literary Worlds Operate

Just As The Blurring Between Childhood And Adulthood Has Produced The Kidult, So The Stretching Of Middle Into Old Age Has Fostered Another Peculiar Chimera: Septuagenarians With Apoptosis Sporting The Depeche Mode.

I'd Rather Fiddle With My Phone For Precious Seconds Than Neglect An Apostrophe; I'd Rather Insert A Word Laboriously Keyed Out Than Resort To Predictive Texting For A - Acceptable To Some - Synonym.

People Tend To Think Of Their Lives As Having A Dramatic Arc, Because They Read Too Much Fiction.

Well, I Wanted To Be A Philosopher, Which Is The Idlest Occupation In The World. I Wanted To Be Involved In Abstract Thought, But Because Of Various Problems With The Authorities I Wasn't Able To Pull That One Off. A Lifetime Of Idleness In Academia Would Have Really Suited Me. So I Was Thrown Out, As It Were. Other Than That, There Seemed No Possible Idle Occupations, So Writing . . . Although Writing Isn't Exactly Idleness. There's An Enormous Tension Between Indolence And Languor.

I Think It's A Misreading Of Dostoevsky To Think Of Him As A Programmatic Theist. He's Actually Much Closer To Someone Like William James. He's Actually A Pragmatist.