The Fifties - They Seem To Have

The Private And Serious Drama Of Guilt Is Not Often A Useful One For Fiction Today And Its Disappearance, Following Perhaps The Disappearance From Life, Appears As A Natural, Almost Unnoticed Relief, Like Some Of The Challenging Illnesses Wiped Out By Drug And Vaccines.

A Letter Is Not A Dialogue Or Even An Omniscient Exposition. It Is A Fabric Of Surfaces, A Mask, A Form As Well Suited To Affectations As To The Affections. The Letter Is, By Its Natural Shape, Self-justifying; It Is One's Own Evidence, Deposition, A Self-serving Testimony. In A Letter The Writer Holds All The Cards, Controls Everything About Himself And About Those Assertions He Wishes To Make Concerning Events Or The Worth Of Others. For Completely Self-centered Characters, The Letter Form Is A Complex And Rewarding Activity.

Mothers Born On Relief Have Their Babies On Relief. Nothingness, Truly, Seems To Be The Condition Of These New York People. They Are Nomads Going From One Rooming House To Another, Looking For A Toilet That Functions.

It's One Of The Things Writing Students Don't Understand. They Write A First Draft And Are Quite Disappointed, Or Often Should Be Disappointed. They Don't Understand That They Have Merely Begun, And That They May Be Merely Beginning Even In The Second Or Third Draft.

Art Is A Profession, Not A Shrine.