We Either Learn To Accept Or We

For Every Mother Who Ever Cursed God For Her Child Dead In The Road, For Every Father Who Ever Cursed The Man Who Sent Him Away From The Factory With No Job, For Every Child Who Was Ever Born To Pain And Asked Why, This Is The Answer. Our Lives Are Like These Things I Build. Sometimes They Fall Down For A Reason, Sometimes They Fall Down For No Reason At All.

I Have Spent A Good Many Years Since―too Many, I Think―being Ashamed About What I Write. I Think I Was Forty Before I Realized That Almost Every Writer Of Fiction Or Poetry Who Has Ever Published A Line Has Been Accused By Someone Of Wasting His Or Her God-given Talent. If You Write (or Paint Or Dance Or Sculpt Or Sing, I Suppose), Someone Will Try To Make You Feel Lousy About It, That's All.

How Much Courage Does It Take To Fire Up Your Tractor And Plow Under A Crop You Spent Six Or Seven Years Growing? How Much Courage To Go On And Do That After You've Spent All That Time Finding Out How To Prepare The Soil And When To Plant And How Much To Water And When To Reap? How Much To Just Say, "i Have To Quit These Peas. Peas Are No Good For Me, I Better Try Corn Or Beans.

The Age Of The Book Is Not Over. No Way... But Maybe The Age Of Some Books Is Over. People Say To Me Sometimes 'steve, Are You Ever Going To Write A Straight Novel, A Serious Novel' And By That They Mean A Novel About College Professors Who Are Having Impotence Problems Or Something Like That. And I Have To Say Those Things Just Don't Interest Me. Why? I Don't Know. But It Took Me About Twenty Years To Get Over That Question, And Not Be Kind Of Ashamed About What I Do, Of The Books I Write.

"am I Weird?" "yeah. But So What? Everybody's Weird."