That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward. |
The age demanded that we dance and jammed us into iron pants. And in the end the age was handed the sort of shit that it demanded. |
The best ammunition against lies is the truth, there is no ammunition against gossip. It is like a fog and the clear wind blows it away and the sun burns it off. |
The best ammunition against lies is the truth, there is no ammunition against gossip. It is like a fog and the clear wind blows it away and the sun burns it off. |
The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. |
The first draft of anything is shit |
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. |
The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. |
The Garden of Eden |
The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life -and one is as good as the other. |
The great thing is to last and get your work done, and see and hear and understand and write when there is something that you know and not before and not too damn much afterwards. |
The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn, and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out. All the outs are too easy, and the thing itself is too hard to do. |
The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he tak |
The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without. |
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it. |