When I Was Younger, I

You Need To Remember That. If You’re To Have Decent Lives, You Have To Know Who You Are And What Lies Ahead Of You, Every One Of You.

The Reason I Wouldn't Dare To Write A Western Is Simply Because That Seems To Be So Much A Part Of American Culture. Maybe If I Want To Write A Western Enough I Should Try To Overcome That Fear, But I'll Certainly Feel Like I'm Trespassing. I Feel That That Is So Much A Part Of American Foundation Myth, It's Part Of The Myth Of America, The American Vision Of What America Is, Which People Have Glorified And Then Challenged And Then Vilified.

If I'm Alone At Home, I Get Increasingly Restless, Bothered By The Idea That I'm Missing Some Crucial Encounter Out There Somewhere. But If I'm Left By Myself In Someone Else's Place, I Often Find Myself A Nice Sense Of Peace Engulfing Me. I Love Sinking Into An Unfamiliar Sofa With Whatever Book Happens To Be Lying Nearby.

I Was Very Young When I Prepared Those Prints. I Suspect The Reason I Couldn't Celebrate The Floating World Was That I Couldn't Bring Myself To Believe In Its Worth. Young Men Are Often Guilt-ridden About Pleasure, And I Suppose I Was No Different. I Suppose I Thought That To Pass Away One's Time In Such Places, To Spend One's Skills Celebrating Things So Intangible And Transient, I Suppose I Thought It All Rather Wasteful, All Rather Decadent. It's Hard To Appreciate The Beauty Of A World When One Doubts Its Very Validity

Because Maybe, In A Way, We Didn't Leave It Behind Nearly As Much As We Might Once Have Thought. Because Somewhere Underneath, A Part Of Us Stayed Like That: Fearful Of The World Around Us, And No Matter How Much We Despised Ourselves For It--unable Quite To Let Each Other Go.