I Don't Think In Terms Of Optimism

The Whole Process Of Writing Is A Setting At A Distance. That Is The Value Of It - To The Writer, And To The People Who Read The Results Of This Process, Which Takes The Raw, The Individual, The Uncriticized, The Unexamined, Into The Realm Of The General.

If You Understand Something, You Don't Forgive It, You Are The Thing Itself: Forgiveness Is For What You Don't Understand.

What Society Doesn't Realize Is That In The Past, Ordinary People Respected Learning. They Respected Books, And They Don't Now, Or Not Very Much. That Whole Respect For Serious Literature And Learning Has Disappeared.

But It Isn't Only The Terror Everywhere, And The Fear Of Being Conscious Of It, That Freezes People. It's More Than That. People Know They Are In A Society Dead Or Dying. They Are Refusing Emotion Because At The End Of Very Emotion Are Property, Money, Power. They Work And Despise Their Work, And So Freeze Themselves. They Love But Know That It's A Half- Love Or A Twisted Love, And So They Freeze Themselves.

I Don't Think That The Feminist Movement Has Done Much For The Characters Of Women.