"The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D."

--

Source : "Nelson Algren, The Art of Fiction No. 11". Interview with Alston Anderson, Terry Southern, www.theparisreview.org. 1955.

Nelson Algren

“If you do something and it goes wrong, you learn from it and you move on.”
“My uncle always said that I could have been a rancher.”
“In the morning I had decided that henceforth I only cared for easy loves. It is so degrading to have to persuade people into liking one, or one's works.”
“Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the Light The marrow in the bone We dreamed was safe. . . the blood in the veins, the sap in the tree Were springs of Deity.”
“Family is fun, way more fun than music.”
“So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. OUr friendship is a nebula. (34)”
“I wanted to be president of the United States. I really did. The older I get, the less preposterous the idea seems.”

Source : "Baldwin on the Brink". Interview with Charles Kaiser, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 1989.
“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, he's probably LK Advani”

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