Life Isn't Just Addition And

Perhaps The World Progresses Not By Maturing, But By Being In A Permanent State Of Adolescence, Of Thrilled Discovery.

Does Character Develop Over Time? In Novels, Of Course It Does: Otherwise There Wouldn't Be Much Of A Story. But In Life? I Sometimes Wonder. Our Attitudes And Opinions Change, We Develop New Habits And Eccentricities; But That's Something Different, More Like Decoration. Perhaps Character Resembles Intelligence, Except That Character Peaks A Little Later: Between Twenty And Thirty, Say. And After That, We're Just Stuck With What We've Got. We're On Our Own. If So, That Would Explain A Lot Of Lives, Wouldn't It? And Also - If This Isn't Too Grand A Word - Our Tragedy.

Is Any Novelist Going To Recognize The Moment When He Or She Has Nothing More To Say? It Is A Brave Thing To Admit. And Since As A Professional Writer You Are Full Of Anxiety Anyway, You Could Easily Misread The Signs.

All Bad Things Are Exaggerated In The Middle Of The Night. When You Lie Awake, You Only Think Of Bad Things.

In Those Days, We Imagined Ourselves As Being Kept In Some Kind Of Holding Pen, Waiting To Be Released Into Our Lives. And When The Moment Came, Our Lives -- And Time Itself -- Would Speed Up. How Were We To Know That Our Lives Had In Any Case Begun, That Some Advantage Had Already Been Gained, Some Damage Already Inflicted? Also, That Our Release Would Only Be Into A Larger Holding Pen, Whose Boundaries Would Be At First Undiscernible.