So the question really is, Why doesn't that pain make you say, I won't do it again? When the pain is so bad that you have to say that, but you don't.

Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.

I attempt all day, at work, not to think about what lies ahead, but this costs me so much effort that there is nothing left for my work. I handle telephone calls so badly that after a while the switchboard operator refuses to connect me. So I had better say to myself, Go ahead and polish the silverware beautifully, then lay it out ready on the sideboard and be done with it. Because I polish it in my mind all day long—this is what torments me (and doesn't clean the silver).

I can talk for a long time only when it's about something boring.

I started with small-press publishers, who were willing to publish all sorts of forms. I didn't move to the larger presses until they knew what they were getting in for.

Do what you want to do, and don't worry if it's a little odd or doesn't fit the market.

The moment when a limit is reached, when there is nothing ahead but darkness: something comes in to help that is not real. Another way all this is like madness: a mad person not helped out of his trouble by anything real begins to trust what is not real because it helps him and he needs it because real things continue not to help him.