What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?

One has to have the courage of one's pessimism.

My parents were keen for me to have the education they themselves never had. They weren't able to guide me towards particular books, but they encouraged me to read, which I did, randomly and compulsively.

In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot.

A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew.