Writing Cannot Be Done In A State

Society Mediates Between The Extremes Of, On The One Hand, Intolerably Strict Morality And, On The Other, Dangerously Anarchic Permissiveness Through An Unspoken Agreement Whereby We Are Given Leave To Bend The Rules Of The Strictest Morality, Provided We Do So Quietly And Discreetly. Hypocrisy Is The Grease That Keeps Society Functioning In An Agreeable Way, By Allowing For Human Fallibility And Reconciling The Seemingly Irreconcilable Human Needs For Order And Pleasure.

A Lawsuit Is To Ordinary Life What War Is To Peacetime. In A Lawsuit, Everybody On The Other Side Is Bad. A Trial Transcript Is A Discourse In Malevolence.

There Are Good Photographers Who Might Elevate Themselves To The Ranks Of The Great Simply By Burning Most Of Their Work.

Writing Cannot Be Done In A State Of Desirelessness.

Poets And Novelists And Playwrights Make Themselves, Against Terrible Resistances, Give Over What The Rest Of Us Keep Safely Locked Within Our Hearts.