Doing What You Do Well

Doing What You Do Well Is Death. Your Duty Is To Keep Trying To Do Things That You Don't Do Well, In The Hope Of Learning.

I Never Went To University. I'm Self-educated. I Didn't Go Because I Was Too Impatient, Too Arrogant.

The Effect Of Prizes On One's Career - If That Is What To Call It - Is Considerable, Since They Give One More Clout With Publishers And More Notoriety Among Journalists. The Effect On One's Writing, However, Is Nil - Otherwise, One Would Be In Deep Trouble.

Yes, This Is What I Thought Adulthood Would Be, A Kind Of Long Indian Summer, A State Of Tranquility, Of Calm Incuriousness, With Nothing Left Of The Barely Bearable Raw Immediacy Of Childhood, All The Things Solved That Had Puzzled Me When I Was Small, All Mysteries Settled, All Questions Answered, And The Moments Dripping Away, Unnoticed Almost, Drip By Golden Drip, Toward The Final, Almost Unnoticed, Quietus.

We Think We're Living In The Present, But We're Really Living In The Past.