The door of the novel, like the door of the poem, also shuts. But not so fast, nor with such manic, unanswerable finality.

There was a beautiful time.

I could feel the winter shaking my bones and banging my teeth together.

I may have made a straight A in physics, but I was panic-struck. Physics made me sick the whole time I learned it.

For the few little successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubt.

I feel, am mad as any writer must in one way be; why not make it real? I am too close to the bourgeois society of suburbia: too close to people I know I must sever my self from them, or be a part of their world: this half and half compromise is intolerable.

I began to see why woman-haters could make such fools of women. Woman-haters were like gods: invulnerable and chock full of power. They descended, and then they disappeared. You could never catch one.