The Moment A Book Is Lent I

The Tension Between 'yes' And No', Between 'i Can' And 'i Cannot,' Makes Us Feel That, In So Many Instances, Human Life Is An Interminable Debate With One's Self.

The First Divorce In The World May Have Been A Tragedy, But The Hundred-millionth Is Not Necessarily One.

It Is One Of The Paradoxes Of American Literature That Our Writers Are Forever Looking Back With Love And Nostalgia At Lives They Couldn't Wait To Leave.

I Remember A Table In Barchestertowers That Had More Character Than The Combined Heroes Of Three Recent Novels I've Read.

Sex Almost Always Disappoints Me In Novels. Everything Can Be Said Or Done Now, And That's What I Often Find: Everything, A Feeling Of Generality Or Dispersal. But In My Experience, True Sex Is So Particular, So Peculiar To The Person Who Yearns For It. Only He Or She, And No One Else, Would Desire So Very Much That Very Person Under Those Circumstances. In Fiction, I Miss That Sense Of Terrific Specificity.