I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and just as complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with.

Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, __ook at my beautiful home! Isn__ it fine?_ And not, __ook at the home so-and-so has built._ Thus we shouldn__ cry, __ook what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!_ But rather, __ook at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?

Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.

To sense the peace of extinguished passionHappiness in not knowing the ultimate knowledge

Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn__ as much pressure to present a respectable exterior. And secondly, there was no social media. So if you were found face down on the floor _ people did do that quite a bit; usually men, but not always _ or fell through plate glass windows or got into scrapes, it became a rumour, and rumours are hard to pin down.

With the young writers now it__ F and C all day long, which he, personally, finds boring.