When You Publish A Book, It's The

When You Decide 'to Be A Writer,' You Don't Have The Faintest Idea Of What The Work Is Like. When You Begin, You Write Spontaneously Out Of Your Limited Experience Of Both The Unwritten World And The Written World. You're Full Of Naïve Exuberance. 'i Am A Writer!' Rather Like The Excitement Of 'i Have A Lover!' But Working At It Nearly Every Day For Fifty Years – Whether It Is Being The Writer Or Being The Lover – Turns Out To Be An Extremely Taxing Job And Hardly The Pleasantest Of Human Activities.

I Often Have To Write A Hundred Pages Or More Before There's A Paragraph That's Alive.

People Were Standing Up Everywhere Shouting, "this Is Me! This Is Me!" Every Time You Looked At Them They Stood Up And Told You Who They Were, And The Truth Of It Was That They Had No More Idea Who Or What They Were Than He Had. They Believed Their Flashing Signs, Too. They Ought To Be Standing Up And Shouting, "this Isn't Me! This Isn't Me!" They Would If They Had Any Decency. "this Isn't Me!" Then You Might Know How To Proceed Through The Flashing Bullshit Of This World.

I Have A Slogan I Use When I Get Anxious Writing, Which Happens Quite A Bit: ‘the Ordeal Is Part Of The Commitment.’ It’s One Of My Mantras. It Makes A Lot Of Things Doable.

People Are Unjust To Anger - It Can Be Enlivening And A Lot Of Fun.