But if you didn't have more urgent things to do after supper [in boot camp], you could write a letter, loaf, gossip, discuss the myriad mental shortcomings of sergeants and, dearest of all, talk about the female of the species (we became convinced that there was no such creatures, just mythology created by inflamed imaginations - one boy in our company claimed to have seen a girl, over at regimental headquarters; he was unanimously judged a liar and a braggart).

Secrecy begets tyranny.

Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?

It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn . . . they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If indeed they are driving at anything--obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.

Was there ever a time when the majority was right?

I took up writing because I needed money. And I continued to write because it's safer than stealing and easier than working.

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.