My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

My business is to be talented, that is, to be capable of selecting the important moments from the trivial ones. . . . It's about time for writers - particularly those who are genuine artists - to recognize that in this world you cannot figure out everything. Just have a writer who the crowds trust be courageous enough and declare that he does not understand everything, and that alone will represent a major contribution to the way people think, a long leap forward.

I have the feeling that I've seen everything, but failed to notice the elephants.

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.

In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you'll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.

Oh, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read - my own or other people's works - it all seems to me not short enough.

You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist.