You Can't Learn Everything You Need To

It´s Natural To Want Someone You Love To Do What You Want, Or What You Think Would Be Good For Them, But You Have To Let Everything Happen To Them. You Can't Interfere With People You Love Any More Than You're Supposed To Interfere With People You Don't Even Know. And That's Hard, ..., Because You Often Feel Like Interfering -you Want To Be The One Who Makes The Plans.

I Believe In Plot, In Development Of Character, In The Effect Of The Passage Of Time, In A Good Story - Better Than Something You Might Find In The Newspaper. And I Believe A Novel Should Be As Complicated And Involved As You're Capable Of Making It.

Along The (writing) Way Accidents Happen, Detours Get Taken... But These Are Not "divine" Accidents; I Don't Believe In Those. I Believe You Have Constructive Accidents En Route Through A Novel Only Because You Have Mapped A Clear Way. If You Have Confidence That You Have A Clear Direction To Take, You Always Have Confidence To Explore Other Ways; If They Prove To Be Mere Digressions, You'll Recognize That And Make The Necessary Revisions. The More You Know About A Book, The Freer You Can Be To Fool Around. The Less You Know, The Tighter You Get.

Life Is An X-rated Soap Opera.

It's Magical Thinking To Imagine That The Reason Unspeakable Things Are Being Perpetrated By Younger And Younger People Is That They've Fallen Under The Influence Of Seductive, Lascivious, Prurient, And Violent Material In Books, Films, Television. A Great Deal Of This Type Of Censorship Has To Do With Absolving Parents Of Responsibility - Parents Who Just Plop Their Kids In Front Of The Television And Leave Them There Hour Upon Hour.