Art Is For [the Irish] Inseparable From

Story Involves Action. Action Towards An End Not To Be Foreseen (by The Reader) But Also Towards An End Which, Having Been Reached, Must Be Seen To Have Been From The Start Inevitable.

One Can Suffer A Convulsion Of One's Entire Nature, And, Unless It Makes Some Noise, No One Notices. It's Not Just That We Are Incurious; We Completely Lack Any Sense Of Each Other's Existences.

Roughly, The Action Of A Character Should Be Unpredictable Before It Has Been Shown, Inevitable When It Has Been Shown. In The First Half Of A Novel, The Unpredictability Should Be The More Striking. In The Second Half, The Inevitability Should Be The More Striking.

Sacrificers Are Not The Ones To Pity. The Ones To Pity Are Those They Sacrifice.

Writers Do Not Find Subjects: Subjects Find Them. There Is Not So Much A Search As A State Of Open Susceptibility.