I protagonisti, Rizzoli, 1976, p. 207.
1950s - 1990s
“I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.”
Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic
"Venice," The Century Magazine, vol. XXV (November 1882), reprinted in Portraits of Places (1883) and later in Italian Hours http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8ihou10.txt (1909), ch: I: Venice, pt. I.
Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution
Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 1, p. 22
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays
"The Situation in American Writing," Partisan Review (Summer 1939)
How Writing Is Written: Previously Uncollected Writings, vol.II (1974)
F. S. Flint (1885–1960) English Imagist poet
Preface , 'Otherworld Cadences', Poetry Bookshop, London 1920
Otherworld Cadences (1920)
“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)
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 2: The Singing School
Ventseslav Konstantinov (1940–2019) Bulgarian writer and Translator
As quoted in "From Bach to Kafka, or... about temptation - An interview by Emil Bassat http://darl.eu/intervie/84_05_30.htm" in Sofia News (30 May 1984).
“1) Writers who write for other writers should write letters.”
Larry Niven (1938) American writer
Niven's Laws, Niven's Laws For Writers
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.
