““The truth about any artist, however terrible, is better than the silence… I know many writers fight fanatically to keep their published self separate from their private reality… But I've always thought of that as something out of our social, time-serving side; not our true artistic ones. I don't see how the "lies" we write and the "lies" we live can or should be divided. They are seamless, one canvas, for me. While we live we can keep them apart, but not command the future to do the same. The outrage some Thomas Hardy fans have shown over all the revelations about the private man seems to me hypocritical in the extreme. They hugely enrich our understanding of him… I have had to convince a number of friends and relatives that the kindest act to the [writer] is remembering them - and that all art comes from a human being, not out of mysterious thin air. (Letter to Jo Jones, September 15, 1980, arguing for the preservation of John Collier's personal papers)””
