I Don't Write For Catharsis; I Have

People With Self-respect Exhibit A Certain Toughness, A Kind Of Moral Nerve; They Display What Was Once Called *character,* A Quality Which, Although Approved In The Abstract, Sometimes Loses Ground To The Other, More Instantly Negotiable Virtues.... Character--the Willingness To Accept Responsibility For One's Own Life--is The Source From Which Self-respect Springs.

Grammar Is A Piano I Play By Ear. All I Know About Grammar Is Its Power.

It Occurs To Me That We Allow Ourselves To Imagine Only Such Messages As We Need To Survive.

This Book Is Called "blue Nights" Because At The Time I Began It I Found My Mind Turning Increasingly To Illness, To The End Of Promise, The Dwindling Of The Days,the Inevitability Of The Fading, The Dying Of The Brightness. Blue Nights Are The Opposite Of The Dying Of The Brightness, But They Are Also Its Warning.

That No One Dies Of Migraine Seems, To Someone Deep Into An Attack, An Ambiguous Blessing.