The Land Of Embarrassment And

In Britain I'm Sometimes Regarded As A Suspiciously Europeanized Writer, Who Has This Rather Dubious French Influence.

We Live In Time, It Bounds Us And Defines Us, And Time Is Supposed To Measure History, Isn't It? But If We Can't Understand Time, Can't Grasp Its Mysteries Of Pace And Progress, What Chance Do We Have With History--even Our Own Small, Personal, Largely Undocumented Piece Of It?

The Best Life For A Writer Is The Life Which Helps Him Write The Best Books He Can.

He Thought Of Trying To Explain Something He Had Recently Noticed About Himself: That If Anyone Insulted Him, Or One Of His Friends, He Didn't Really Mind--or Not Much, Anyway. Whereas If Anyone Insulted A Novel, A Story, A Poem That He Loved, Something Visceral And Volcanic Occurred Within Him. He Wasn't Sure What This Might Mean--except Perhaps That He Had Got Life And Art Mixed Up, Back To Front, Upside Down.

There Is A German Word, Sehnsucht, Which Has No English Equivalent; It Means 'the Longing For Something'. It Has Romantic And Mystical Connotations; C.s. Lewis Defined It As The 'inconsolable Longing' In The Human Heart For 'we Know Not What'. It Seems Rather German To Be Able To Specify The Unspecifiable. The Longing For Something - Or, In Our Case, For Someone.