To wake up one morning and feel that I was a last a grown-up person, emptied of resentment, vengeful thoughts and other wasteful childish emotions. To find myself, in other words, an adult. Truman Capote

Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio.

My father was quite an attractive guy. He was very intelligent and very amusing. I didn't like him. He was always very nice to me but I just didn't like him.

Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has defined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right.

It should take you about four seconds to walk from here to the door. I'll give you two.

But he does look stupid.' Yearning. Not stupid. He wants awfully to be on the inside staring out: anybody with their nose pressed against a glass is liable to look stupid.

It's worth your life to order an omelette in most restaurants. You never know what you're going to get.