“I am convinced that talent is almost a commonplace, something that almost everyone shares—as most people dream—but most people are inhibited by self-criticism before the event, so that many ideas are discarded or lost in transit between the brain and the manuscript. The great writer is doubtless one who allows all the things he thinks to pass into his writing. He has no tollkeeper at the gate, so to speak, allows even the seemingly ridiculous things to pass, tries to catch every nuance, every thought, knows that in the final form all things will be coherent. Between him and the fragmentary, unrealized writer there may be only this difference: that the latter has a very active tollkeeper, turning things back. —MARGUERITE YOUNG Almost”