One of the satisfactions of fiction, or drama, or poetry from the perpetrator's point of view is the selective order it imposes upon the confusion of a lived life; out of the daily welter of sensation and impression these few verbal artifacts, these narratives or poems, are salvaged and carefully presented.

Writers take words seriously-perhaps the last professional class that does- and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and…

The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousa…

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.