In Books, As In Life, There Are

In The Compact Between Novelist And Reader, The Novelist Promises To Lie, And The Reader Promises To Allow It.

Whoever Mourns The Dead Mourns Himself.

Bohemia And All Its Works Are Vanished Out Of America; Or, More Exactly, Bohemia Has Migrated To The Middle Class, And Is Alive And Well In Condo And Suburb.

One Reason Writers Write Is Out Of Revenge. Life Hurts; Certain Ideas And Experiences Hurt; One Wants To Clarify, To Set Out Illuminations, To Replay The Old Bad Scenes And Get The Treppenworte Said -- The Words One Didn't Have The Strength Or Ripeness To Say When Those Words Were Necessary For One's Dignity Or Survival.

I Was So Mad At My Agent. I Had Polished And Polished And Polished [the Play], And He Referred To It As A Draft. I Wrote Him A Bitter Letter: How Can You Call This A Draft? I Don't Do Drafts! By Now I've Done 18, And Its Turning, In The Rehearsal Room, Into A 19th.