Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality.

Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality.

One of the many interesting challenges nature presents us is its apparent disinterest in maintaining the order humans crave.

...ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible, then you win. If you don't, you may make a fortune in ten years, but you're not going to be read in twenty years, and that's that.

Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.

I cannot believe such monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing!

To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write [...] so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write [...] so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on. If there is good to be said, the writer should say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say it in a way that reflects the truth that, though we see the evil, we choose to continue among the living. The true artist [...] gets his sense of worth and honor from his conviction that art is powerful--