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1 " A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind. Another question: why do some people remain open and elastic into extreme old age, whereas others become rigid and unproductive before they're fifty? "
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2 " In India when I was a boy they had great big green lizards there, and if you shouted or shot them their tails would fall off. There was only one boy in the school who could catch lizards intact. No one knew quite how he did it. He had a special soft way of going up to them, and he’d bring them back with their tails on. That strikes me as the best analogy I can give you. To try and catch your poem without its tail falling off. "
3 " Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. "
4 " INTERVIEWER: Do you do much rewriting?Wiper: I forget which of the great sonneteers said: “One linein the fourteen comes from the ceiling; the others have to beadjusted around it.” Well, likewise there are passages in everynovel whosefirst writing is pretty much the last. But it’s the jointand cement, between those spontaneouspassages, that take a greatdeal of rewriting. "
5 " All my thoughts are second thoughts. "