It's A Curious Thing In American Life

Part Of The Function Of Memory Is To Forget; The Omni-retentive Mind Will Break Down And Produce At Best An Idiot Savant Who Can Recite A Telephone Book, And At Worst A Person To Whom Every Grudge And Slight Is As Yesterday's.

I Learned That To Be Amusing Was Not To Be Frivolous And That Language - Always The Language - Was The Magic Key As Much To Prose As To Poetry.

Beautiful Sentences Pop Into My Head. Beautiful Sentences That Aren't Always Absolutely Accurate. Then, I Have To Choose Between The Beautiful Sentence And Being Absolutely Accurate. It Can Be A Difficult Choice.

It's The Professional Deformation Of Many Writers, And Has Ruined Not A Few. (i Remember Kingsley Amis, Himself No Slouch, Saying That He Could Tell On What Page Of The Novel Paul Scott Had Reached For The Bottle And Thrown Caution To The Winds.)

I Am Not Even An Atheist So Much As I Am An Antitheist; I Not Only Maintain That All Religions Are Versions Of The Same Untruth, But I Hold That The Influence Of Churches, And The Effect Of Religious Belief Is Positively Harmful. Reviewing The False Claims Of Religion, I Do Not Wish, As Some Sentimental Materialists Affect To Wish, That They Were True. I Do Not Envy Believers Their Faith. I Am Relieved To Think That The Whole Story Is A Sinister Fairy Tale; Life Would Be Miserable If What The Faithful Affirmed Was Actually The Case.