The Truth Came Slowly Like A Story

We Are, In This Country, More Open To New Ideas. But We Are Also, It Seems To Me, More Inclined To Hail The New As Absolute Truth - Until The Next New Comes Along.

Literature Is The Province Of Imagination, And Stories, In Whatever Guise, Are Meditations On Life.

I Taught Writing Classes At The University Of Pennsylvania For A Number Of Years And I Realized That All You Can Do Is Encourage People And Give Them Assignments And Hope They Will Write Them.

Labels Not Only Free Us From The Obligation To Think Creatively; They Numb Our Sensibilities, Our Power To Feel. During The Vietnam War, The Phrase Body Count Entered Our Vocabulary. It Is An Ambiguous Phrase, Inorganic, Even Faintly Sporty. It Distanced Us From The Painful Reality Of Corpses, Of Dead, Mutilated People.

When There's A Terrible Murder People Who Are Interviewed Say, 'this Has Always Been A Quiet Neighborhood.' That Is So Dumb And Uninformed! The Earth Is Not A Quiet Neighborhood. There Isn't Anyplace That's A Quiet Neighborhood. People Are Asking Themselves How To Stay Neat In The Cyclone.