A kid is a guy I never wrote down to. He's interested in what I say if I make it interesting. He is also the last container of a sense of humor, which disappears as he gets older, and he laughs only according to the way the boss, society, politics or race wants him to. Then he becomes an adult. And an adult is an obsolete child.
Most good stories say one thing.
The mark of a really great writer is that he gives expression to what the masses of mankind think or feel without knowing it. The mediocre writer simply writes what everyone would have said. Shun the epic. No wonder the really powerful men in our society, whether politicians or scientists, hold writers and poets in contempt. Pencils and pads and curling blue sheets alive with letters heap on the desk.