“American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.”

— Gore Vidal , book Two Sisters

Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel http://books.google.com/books?id=xnJbAAAAMAAJ&q="American+writers+want+to+be+not+good+but+great+and+so+are+neither" (1970)
1970s

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Gore Vidal 163

American writer 1925–2012

Tom Heehler American author

The Well-Spoken Thesaurus (2011)

“A good Soul hath neither too great joy, nor too great sorrow: for it rejoiceth in goodness; and it sorroweth in wickedness. By the means whereof, when it beholdeth all things, and seeth the good and bad so mingled together, it can neither rejoice greatly; nor be grieved with over much sorrow.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)

“I want to be an honest man and a good writer.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Paris Review interview (1958)

“I don't want to be a writer so I can write about my life. I want to be a writer to escape from it.

+ Then you shouldn't be a writer.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

“Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
So great a poet and so good a friend.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Epistle to Peter Antony Motteux (1698), lines 54–55.

“The great and present danger to American literature is the growing homogeneity of our writers, especially the younger generation. Often raised in several places in no specific cultural or religious community, educated with no deep connection to a region, history, or tradition, and now employed mostly in academia, the American writer is becoming as standardized as the American car--functional, streamlined, and increasingly interchangeable”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

27
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)

“The good stories, of course, write themselves. And somebody wants to know who are the really good writers, and how many of them there are. There aren't any. Most of the writers are likeable frauds. Some are unlikable frauds.”

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs (1995)

“The truly great writer does not want to write. He wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The William Saroyan Reader (1958)
Context: The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy — the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops.

“American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.”

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