America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an ?lite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment. – W. H. Auden
Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books. – W. H. Auden
Somehow, knowing that Alzheimers is coming mocks all ones aspirations – to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a novel can do, to be recognised for ones accomplishments and hard work – in a way that old familiar death does not. – Jane Smiley
