Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.

I do a great deal of research, especially in the apartments of tall blondes.

I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.

Tall, aren't you?" she said. "I didn't mean to be." Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.

I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights.

The moment a man begins to talk about technique that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.