Be Glad You're Fifty - Andthat You

Jake Was Close To Tears. In That Moment He Saw The World In Its True Light, As A Place Where Nothing Had Ever Been Any Good And Nothing Of Significance Done: No Art Worth A Second Look, No Philosophy Of The Slightest Appositeness, No Law But Served The State, No History That Gave An Inkling Of How It Had Been And What Had Happened. And No Love, Only Egotism, Infatuation And Lust.

The World That Seemed So Various And New, Well, It Does Contract. One's Burning Desire To Investigate Human Behavior, And To Make, Or Imply, Statements About It, Does Fall Off. And So One Does Find That Early Works Are Full Of Energy And Also Full Of Vulgarity, Crudity, And Incompetence, And Later Works Are More Carefully Finished, And In That Sense Better Literary Products. But . . . There's Often A Freshness That Is Missing In Later Works--for Every Gain There's A Loss. I Think It Evens Out In That Way.

When Starting To Think About Any Novel, Part Of The Motive Is: I'm Going To Show Them, This Time.

Self Criticism Must Be My Guide To Action, And The First Rule For Its Employment Is That In Itself It Is Not A Virtue, Only A Procedure.

If There's One Word That Sums Up Everything That's Gone Wrong Since The War, It's Workshop. After Youth, That Is.