I Could Be A Bit Of A

I Was Brought Up In The War. I Was An Adolescent In The Second World War. And I Did Witness In London A Great Deal Of The Blitz.

The Speech We Hear Is An Indication Of That Which We Don't Hear. It Is A Necessary Avoidance, A Violent, Sly, And Anguished Or Mocking Smoke Screen Which Keeps The Other In Its True Place. When True Silence Falls We Are Left With Echo But Are Nearer Nakedness. One Way Of Looking At Speech Is To Say That It Is A Constant Stratagem To Cover Nakedness.

I Think We Communicate Only Too Well, In Our Silence, In What Is Unsaid, And That What Takes Place Is A Continual Evasion, Desperate Rearguard Attempts To Keep Ourselves To Ourselves. Communication Is Too Alarming. To Enter Into Someone Else's Life Is Too Frightening. To Disclose To Others The Poverty Within Us Is Too Fearsome A Possibility.

I Also Found Being Called Sir Rather Silly.

A Writer's Life Is A Highly Vulnerable, Almost Naked Activity. We Don't Have To Weep About That. The Writer Makes His Choice And Is Stuck With It. But It Is True To Say That You Are Open To All The Winds, Some Of Them Icy Indeed. You Are Out On Your Own, Out On A Limb. You Find No Shelter, No Protection - Unless You Lie - In Which Case Of Course You Have Constructed Your Own Protection And, It Could Be Argued, Become A Politician.