There Had Not Been This Many Words

I Delight In What I Fear.

The First Book Is The Book You Have To Write To Get Back At Your Parents; The Book You Always Had In You. Once You Get That Out Of Your Way, You Can Start Writing Books.

I Cannot Find Any Patience For Those People Who Believe That You Start Writing When You Sit Down At Your Desk And Pick Up Your Pen And Finish Writing When You Put Down Your Pen Again; A Writer Is Always Writing, Seeing Everything Through A Thin Mist Of Words, Fitting Swift Little Descriptions To Everything He Sees, Always Noticing. Just As I Believe That A Painter Cannot Sit Down To His Morning Coffee Without Noticing What Color It Is, So A Writer Cannot See An Odd Little Gesture Without Putting A Verbal Description To It, And Ought Never To Let A Moment Go By Undescribed.

[l]et My Reader Who Is Puzzled By My Awkward Explanations Close His Eyes For No More Than Two Minutes, And See If He Does Not Find Himself Suddenly Not A Compact Human Being At All, But Only A Consciousness On A Sea Of Sound And Touch . . .

My Name Is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I Am Eighteen Years Old, And I Live With My Sister Constance. I Have Often Thought That With Any Luck At All, I Could Have Been Born A Werewolf, Because The Two Middle Fingers On Both My Hands Are The Same Length, But I Have Had To Be Content With What I Had. I Dislike Washing Myself, And Dogs, And Noise. I Like My Sister Constance, And Richard Plantagenet, And Amanita Phalloides, The Death-cup Mushroom. Everyone Else In Our Family Is Dead.