A Bowen, In The First Place, Made

I Am Dead Against Art's Being Self-expression. I See An Inherent Failure In Any Story Which Fails To Detach Itself From The Author-detach Itself In The Sense That A Well-blown Soap-bubble Detaches Itself From The Bowl Of The Blower's Pipe And Spherically Takes Off Into The Air As A New, Whole, Pure, Iridescent World. Whereas The Ill-blown Bubble, As Children Know, Timidly Adheres To The Bowl's Lip, Then Either Bursts Or Sinks Flatly Back Again.

The Process Of Reading Is Reciprocal; The Book Is No More Than A Formula, To Be Furnished Out With Images Out Of The Reader's Mind.

A Novel Which Survives, Which Withstands And Outlives Time, Does Do Something More Than Merely Survive. It Does Not Stand Still. It Accumulates Round Itself The Understanding Of All These Persons Who Bring To It Something Of Their Own. It Acquires Associations, It Becomes A Form Of Experience In Itself, So That Two People Who Meet Can Often Make Friends, Find An Approach To Each Other, Because Of This One Great Common Experience They Have Had.

No One Of The Characters In My Novels Has Originated, So Far As I Know, In Real Life. If Anything, The Contrary Was The Case: Persons Playing A Part In My Life--the First Twenty Years Of It--had About Them Something Semi-fictitious.

Spoilt Pleasure Is A Sad, Unseemly Thing; You Can Only Bury It.