Life Is To Be Used,

It Is A Most Curious Experience For A Man Of Seventy-two To Be Confronted With The Greenhorn Enthusiasms Of His Youth. Young People Think They Are So Smart. Alas The Doctrines They Spout With Such Fervor Turn Out To Be Mostly Parroted From Their Elders.

A Novel Is A Commodity That Fulfills A Certain Need; People Need To Buy Daydreams Like They Need To Buy Ice Cream Or Aspirin Or Gin. They Even Need To Buy A Pinch Of Intellectual Catnip Now And Then To Liven Up Their Thoughts.

There's Something Wonderfully Exciting About The Quiet Sing Song Of An Aeroplane Overhead With All The Guns In Creation Lighting Out At It, And Searchlights Feeling Their Way Across The Sky Like Antennae, And The Earth Shaking Snort Of The Bombs And The Whimper Of Shrapnel Pieces When They Come Down To Patter On The Roof.

It Has Been The Struggle Between Privileged Men Who Have Managed To Get Hold Of The Levers Of Power And The People In General Withtheir Vague And Changing Aspirations For Equality, For Justice, For Some Kind Of Gentler Brotherhood And Peace, Which Has Kept That Balance Of Forces We Call Our System Of Government In Equilibrium.

This Ain't A War... It's A Goddam Whorehouse.