Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.

We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.

But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.

Good literature makes your head throb heartlike

The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand.