When A Man Cannot Chose, He Ceases

Blockbusting Fiction Is Bought As Furniture. Unread, It Maintains Its Value. Read, It Looks Like Money Wasted. Cunningly, Americans Know That Books Contain A Person, And They Want The Person, Not The Book.

I Don't Write Out Of Fear. I Write Out Of A Strong Urge To Meet Death On Its Own Eternal Terms, Because The Fact Is That If You Write As Little As A Page Of Prose-even Bad Prose-that Is Eternal.

Do They Merit Vitriol, Even A Drop Of It? Yes, Because They Corrupt The Young, Persuading Them That The Mature World, Which Produced Beethoven And Schweitzer, Sets An Even Higher Value On The Transient Anodynes Of Youth Than Does Youth Itself.... They Are The Hollow Men. They Are Electronic Lice.

Literature Ceases To Be Literature When It Commits Itself To Moral Uplift; It Becomes Moral Philosophy Or Some Such Dull Thing.

...youth Is Only Being In A Way Like It Might Be An Animal. No, It Is Not Just Like Being An Animal So Much As Being Like One Of These Malenky Toys You Viddy Being Sold In The Streets, Like Little Chellovecks Made Out Of Tin And With A Spring Inside And Then A Winding Handle On The Outside And You Wind It Up Grrr Grrr Grrr And Off It Itties, Like Walking, O My Brothers. But It Itties In A Straight Line And Bangs Straight Into Things Bang Bang And It Cannot Help What It Is Doing. Being Young Is Like Being Like One Of These Malenky Machines.