Novelist as a Vocation

What we call the imagination consists of fragments of memory that lack any clear connection with one another.

A writer’s instinct and intuition derive less from logic and more from the level of determination brought to the task.

little by little, I have developed the habit of questioning my immediate response to things. This pattern of behavior is not natural to me; rather, it is acquired, the result of a long list of disastrous decisions.

Before we can say much about an artist’s style, we need to see an accumulated body of work. Otherwise there just isn’t enough to go on. We can’t really assess someone’s originality until we can line up a number of their works and examine them from a variety of angles.

It’s a very rough estimate, but my guess is that about five percent of all people are active readers of literature. This narrow slice of the population forms the core of the total reading public.

Opinion surveys allow you to check the box “Undecided.” Well, I think there should be another box you can check: “Undecided at the present time.”

All creative activity is, to some extent, done partly with the intention to rectify or fix yourself. In other words, by relativizing yourself, by adapting your soul to a form that’s different from what it is now, you can resolve—or sublimate—the contradictions, rifts, and distortions that inevitably crop up in the process of being alive.

the first task for the aspiring novelist is to read tons of novels. Sorry to start with such a commonplace observation, but no training is more crucial.

The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

In my opinion, an artist must fulfill the following three basic requirements to be deemed “original”: The artist must possess a clearly unique and individual style (of sound, language, or color). Moreover, that uniqueness should be immediately perceivable on first sight (or hearing). That style must have the power to update itself. It should grow w