What And How Much Had I Lost

At Best Americans Give But A Limited Attention To History. Too Much Happens Too Rapidly, And Before We Can Evaluate It, Or Exhaust Its Meaning Or Pleasure, There Is Something New To Concern Us. Ours Is The Tempo Of The Motion Picture, Not That Of The Still Camera, And We Waste Experience As We Wasted The Forest.

By And Large, The Critics And Readers Gave Me An Affirmed Sense Of My Identity As A Writer. You Might Know This Within Yourself, But To Have It Affirmed By Others Is Of Utmost Importance. Writing Is, After All, A Form Of Communication.

We Don't All Dig Shakespeare Uniformly, Or Even 'little Red Riding Hood.' The Understanding Of Art Depends Finally Upon One's Willingness To Extend One's Humanity And One's Knowledge Of Human Life.

The Blues Is An Art Of Ambiguity, An Assertion Of The Irrepressibly Human Over All Circumstances, Whether Created By Others Or By One's Own Human Failing.

I Denounce Because Though Implicated And Partially Responsible, I Have Been Hurt To The Point Of Abysmal Pain, Hurt To The Point Of Invisibility. And I Defend Because In Spite Of It All, I Find That I Love.