He takes words off here and puts words on there because he wants his disguise to be complete and impressive. Go look at the books in libraries. They are the endless roster of the dead. Most men bury themselves in books. Only occasionally does a man resurrect himself in a book. He makes his writing the parade. It marches with brass bands. Everybody knows it's coming. And everybody knows of it after it's gone. But nothing can make it live. Active as it seems to be it's still a burial. You who have tried so hard and have not succeeded may yet learn that he only succeeds who dont try at all. When you try--that means that you're up against it. When you've got to engineer. When you've got to watch your ps and qs. When you're afraid you'll not know how to turn a sudden corner. Then you're no use. Then you're firing in the air. You're to discover how to win without caring whether you win or lose. You're to find out that you'll arrive without worrying over the process. He is surest who dont ask for pledges. Words are a fatality. You writers who are trying to write. You writers who are trying to write. You who'd do anything rather than be thought of no importance. You who'd murder the language or rape it or rob it or do anything to it rather than not make your point. You: what have I to say to you? Just what I have been saying. Go on with your dance. Get what you can out of the disgraceful scramble. Poke your heads into the slop trough. Let me paraphrase the man who advised his boy to get money. Make books. Honestly if you can. But make books. Try for points. If you cant make them on the square make them on the foul. Try to write. Dont try to think. Dont try to love. Dont try to serve. Try to write. Get a reputation. Never mind your character. Do everything you can to convince everybody that you are what you know you are not. A man has to make a living. Therefore he has to do what he has to do to get it. So you have to be notorious. Therefore you have to do what you have to do to get notoriety. If you have to murder your mother to get success murder your mother. What's one mother to one success? If you have to starve children in factories to get success starve children. What are a few children out of so many? You are the spokesman of life and death. You can be hired for so much per to aid and abet the orthodoxies. Sell your soul. What is one soul, even if it's your soul, to one success? Your words. You can turn them into nugget values. You can set a high figure on them. And you can hypnotize the purchaser. Not a word without pay. This is a world and a time of bargain and sale. Make the world pay. Watch the market. See what it wants. Give it that. Try to conform. Try to write not your soul's words or your heart's words but trade's words. Give the verbal stock market all the preferences. Everybody else sells whatever he can. You have words. Words are your only treasure. Why shouldn't you sell words? And you will sell the words that are according