What Are We? Humans? Or

Maybe, He Said Hesitantly, Maybe There Is A Beast. The Assembly Cried Out Savagely And Ralph Stood Up In Amazement. You, Simon? You Believe In This? I Don't Know, Said Simon. His Heartbeats Were Choking Him. [...] Ralph Shouted. Hear Him! He's Got The Conch! What I Mean Is . . . Maybe It's Only Us. Nuts! That Was From Piggy, Shocked Out Of Decorum.

Put Simply The Novel Stands Between Us And The Hardening Concept Of Statistical Man. There Is No Other Medium In Which We Can Live For So Long And So Intimately With A Character. That Is The Service A Novel Renders.

I Also Know Patrick White In Australia, Both Personally And As A Writer, And Salman Rushdie In India.

As Soon As Oliver Twist Is Serialized, People Who Would Never Dream Of Reading [charles] Dickens, If They Hadn't Seen Him On Their Box, Buy The Paperback.

I Mean, If We're Concerned Genuinely With Writing, I Think We Probably Get On With Our Work. I Think This Is Very True Of English Writers, But Perhaps Not So True Of French Writers, Who Seem To Read Each Other Passionately, Extensively, And Endlessly, And Who Then Talk About It To Each Other - Which Is Splendid.