On the strong temptation to use demagoguery to get ahead in literature

My two major regrets as a writer

I have two major regrets as a writer: things that I wish I could go back and do over again. Both are errors of omission rather than errors of commission. I don't really regret any of the things I wrote or did--even the mistakes seem, in retrospect, to have been necessary. But in these two instances, I knew that I had a moral responsibility to speak up, and I was afraid to do it. And the truly odd thing is that these cases are diametrical opposites. In one case, I feel guilty for not riling people up; in the other I feel guilty for not calming them down.