Pastoral Resources

Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge.

Sometimes there's a snobbery among literary types that these people don't really get it, but in a lot of ways they get it more than the literati. There's a culture in the background that they understand and know. They get that deeper level.

I think that there are empty ecological niches in the literary landscape crying to be filled and when a book more or less fills a niche it's seized on, even when it's a far from perfect fit.

Probably induced by the asthma, I started reading and writing early on, my literary efforts from the age of about nine running chiefly to poetry and plays.

You don't have to know people personally for them to be role models. Some of my most important role models were historical or literary figures that I only read about - never actually met.