That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his p...raise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To endow the writer publicly with a good fleshly body, to reveal that he likes dry white wine and underdone steak, is to make even... more miraculous for me, and of a more divine essence, the products of his art. Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the nature of his inspiration and making it clearer, it is the whole mystical singularity of his condition which the writer emphasizes by such confidences. For I cannot but ascribe to some superhumanity the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pajamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children don't read to find their identity, to free themselves from guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion or to get rid of ali...enation. They have no use for psychology.... They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish illusions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But compared with the task of selecting a piece of French pastry held by an impatient waiter a move in chess is like reaching for ...a salary check in its demand on the contemplative faculties.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why th...e writer hasn't written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt ... [ellipsis in source] the non-essentia...l writer never gets past that wish.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The writer, unlike his non-writing adult friend, has no predisposed outlook; he seldom observes deliberately. He sees what he did ...not intend to see; he remembers what does not seem wholly possible. Inattentive learner in the schoolroom of life, he keeps some faculty free to veer and wander. His is the roving eye.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »