A Writer Can Get Into A Vast

No Nostalgia Runs Deeper Than That For Something One Has Never Known And Now Cannot Obtain.

I Was Recently Asked What It Takes To Become A Writer. Three Things, I Answered: First, One Must Cultivate Incompetence At Almost Every Other Form Of Profitable Work. This Must Be Accompanied, Second, By A Haughty Contempt For All The Forms Of Work That One Has Established One Cannot Do. To These Two Must Be Joined, Third, The Nuttiness To Believe That Other People Can Be Made To Care About Your Opinions And Views And Be Charmed By The Way You State Them. Incompetence, Contempt, Lunacy—once You Have These In Place, You Are Set To Go.

I Should Prefer To Die Laughing, And, On More Than One Occasion, Thought I Might.

High Standards Generally -- About Workmanship And Creation Of Objects, About What Is Owed In Friendship, About The Quality Of Art And Much Else -- Far From Being Snobbish, Are Required To Maintain Decency In Life.

Courage Is Nine-tenths Context. What Is Courageous In One Setting Can Be Foolhardy In Another And Even Cowardly In A Third.