I am blamed for the pardon of [Ezra Hervey] Heywood, convicted in Boston of sending obscene matter through the mails. A man guilty... of circulating, writing, or publishing obscene books--books intended or calculated to corrupt the young--would find no favor with me.... I think the real objection to Heywood's act is ... that he was on the wrong side of the question ... as to marriage.... But it is no crime by the laws of the United States to advocate the abolition of marriage. In this case the writings were objectionable but were not obscene, lascivious, lewd, or corrupting in the criminal sense.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While you continue to grow fatter and richer publishing your nauseating confectionery, I shall become a mole, digging here, rootin...g there, stirring up the whole rotten mess where life is hard, raw and ugly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With importa...nt connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes--McCarthy and Stalin--that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Channing you have seen and described is the real Simon Pure. You have seen him. Many a good ramble may you have together! You ...will see in him still more of the same kind to attract and to puzzle you. How to serve him most effectually has long been a problem with his friends. Perhaps it is left for you to solve it. I suspect that the most you or any one can do for him is to appreciate his genius,--to buy and read, and cause others to buy and read, his poems. That is the hand which he has put forth to the world,--take hold of that. Review them if you can,--perhaps take the risk of publishing something more which he may write. Your knowledge of Cowper will help you to know Channing. He will accept sympathy and aid, but he will not bear questioning, unless the aspects of the sky are particularly auspicious. He will ever be "reserved and enigmatic," and you must deal with him at arm's length.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I became increasingly anarchistic. I began to find people of my own class vicious, people in clean collars uninteresting. I even a...ccepted smells, personal as well as official. Everyone who came to the studio smelled either of machine oil or herring.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the great thing to learn about life is, first, not to do what you don't want to do, and, second, to do what you do want to do.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had been curiously depressed all day. In the night I wakened. First precise thought: I know why I'm depressed--nothing inspired ...is going on. Second: I demand that life be inspired every moment. Third: the only way to guarantee this is to have inspired conversation every moment. Fourth: most people never get so far as conversation; they haven't the stamina, and there is no time. Fifth: if I had a magazine I could spend my time filling it up with the best conversation the world has to offer. Sixth: marvelous idea--salvation. Seventh: decision to do it. Deep sleep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I defied nothing at all. I ignored the law because I didn't know it existed. It didn't occur to me that anyone would want to curb ...my inspiration.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It will be the mistake of your life if you go into print in your own defence [sic]. Your denial will reach a new set of people and... start them to talking, while the ones who read the original charges will never see the refutation of them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
After I went to bed I had a curious fancy as to dreams. In sleep the doors of the mind are shut, and thoughts come jumping in at t...he windows. They tumble headlong, and therefore are so disorderly and strange. Sometimes they are stout and light on their feet, and then they are rational dreams.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »