We Desert Those Who Desert Us; We

Dialogue Should Convey A Sense Of Spontaneity But Eliminate The Repetitiveness Of Real Talk.

As A Novelist, I Cannot Occupy Myself With "characters," Or At Any Rate Central Ones, Who Lack Panache, In One Or Another Sense, Who Would Be Incapable Of A Major Action Or A Major Passion, Or Who Have Not A Touch Of The Ambiguity, The Ultimate Unaccountability, The Enlarging Mistiness Of Persons "in History." History, As More Austerely I Now Know It, Is Not Romantic. But I Am.

Without Fiction, Either Life Would Be Insufficient Or The Winds From The North Would Blow Too Cold.

Dialogue Is The Ideal Means Of Showing What Is Between The Characters. It Crystallizes Relationships. It Should, Ideally, Be So Effective As To Make Analysis Or Explanation Of The Relationships Between The Characters Unnecessary.

Illusions Are Art, For The Feeling Person, And It Is By Art That We Live, If We Do.