“You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist
“Well, here you get to be a writer when there's absolutely nothing else you can do.”
"The Art of Fiction No. 11" (1955)
Context: I don't think the isolation of the American writer is a tradition; it's more that geographically he just is isolated, unless he happens to live in New York City. But I don't suppose there's a small town around the country that doesn't have a writer. The thing is that here you get to be a writer differently. I mean, a writer like Sartre decides, like any professional man, when he's fifteen, sixteen years old, that instead of being a doctor he's going to be a writer. And he absorbs the French tradition and proceeds from there. Well, here you get to be a writer when there's absolutely nothing else you can do. I mean, I don't know of any writers here who just started out to be writers, and then became writers. They just happen to fall into it.
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Do you have more details about the quote "Well, here you get to be a writer when there's absolutely nothing else you can do." by Nelson Algren?
Nelson Algren30
American novelist, short story writer 1909–1981Related quotes
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1960's
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