If You Liked A Book, Don't Meet

At Least Half The Mystery Novels Published Violate The Law That The Solution, Once Revealed, Must Seem To Be Inevitable.

Some Are Able And Humane Men And Some Are Low-grade Individuals With The Morals Of A Goat, The Artistic Integrity Of A Slot Machine, And The Manners Of A Floorwalker With Delusions Of Grandeur.

There Is Something About The Literary Life That Repels Me, All This Desperate Building Of Castles On Cobwebs, The Long-drawn Acrimonious Struggle To Make Something Important Which We All Know Will Be Gone Forever In A Few Years, The Miasma Of Failure Which Is To Me Almost As Offensive As The Cheap Gaudiness Of Popular Success.

Television Is Really What We've Been Looking For All Our Lives.... [it's] Perfect. You Turn A Few Knobs And Lean Back And Drain Your Mind Of All Thought. And There You Are Watching The Bubbles In The Primordial Ooze.

When I Left Merle Was Wearing A Bungalow Apron And Rolling Pie Crust. She Came To The Door Wiping Her Hands On The Apron And Kissed Me On The Mouth And Began To Cry And Ran Back Into The House, Leaving The Doorway Empty [...] I Had A Funny Feeling As I Saw The House Disappear, As Though I Had Written A Poem And It Was Very Good And I Had Lost It And Would Never Remember It Again. (p. 262)