As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)

I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work.

I'm beginning to feel that no author has the right to tear his characters apart if he doesn't know how, or feel that he knows how (poor sucker) to put them together again. I'm tired—my God, so tired—of leaving them all broken on the page with just 'The End' written underneath.

I feel overwhelmingly grateful to them, but I don't know what to do with their invisible gifts.

Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.