“A real author gets his best pieces of literature from narrow alleys and dirty houses”
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Ali Al-Wardi 39
Iraqi sociologist 1913–1995Related quotes

Letter to M.V. Kiseleva (January 14, 1887
Letters
“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”

NME (New Musical Express), December 15, 2006, when asked if he still believes in Arcadia.
Arcadia
Source: Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View (1974), p. 121
Context: When an individual wishes to stand in opposition to authority, he does best to find support for his position from others in his group. The mutual support provided by men for each other is the strongest bulwark we have against the excesses of authority. (Not that the group is always on the right side of the issue. Lynch mobs and groups of predatory hoodlums remind us that groups may be vicious in the influence they exert.)
Section 4.5 <!-- p. 202 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)

As such, one would rather be in the dirtiest place where there is something to draw, than at a tea party with charming ladies. Unless one wants to draw ladies, then a tea party is all right even for an artist.
quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in Spring 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 34 (letter 190)
1880s, 1882

As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations : A Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 154