Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.

Still, intuitive assumptions about behavior is only the starting point of systematic analysis, for alone they do not yield many interesting implications.

The writer is all alone.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone.