“He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.”

— Paul Theroux

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone." by Paul Theroux?

Paul Theroux 32

American travel writer and novelist 1941

Related quotes

“In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.”

Don DeLillo book The Names

Source: The Names (1982), Ch. 5

“All writing is an antisocial act, since the writer is a man who can speak freely only when alone; to be himself he must lock himself up, to communicate he must cut himself off from all communication; and in this there is something always a little mad.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

"Tennessee Williams" (1956), p. 97
Profiles (1990)

“A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Interview in Writers at Work, Second Series, ed. George Plimpton (1963)

“The less he sees of other writers the more of a writer he will ultimately become. When he sees scarcely anyone except other writers, he is ready for New York.”

Nelson Algren book Nonconformity

Nonconformity (1953/1996)
Context: The American middle class's faith in personal comfort as an end in itself is, in essence, a denial of life. And it has been imposed upon American writers and playwrights strongly enough to cut them off from their deeper sources. The shortcut to comfort is called “specialization,” and in an eye-ear-nose-and-throat doctor this makes sense. But in a writer it is fatal. The less he sees of other writers the more of a writer he will ultimately become. When he sees scarcely anyone except other writers, he is ready for New York.