"I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: first, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other form of profitable work. This must be accompanied, second, by a haughty contempt for all the forms of work that one has established one cannot do. To these two must be joined, third, the nuttiness to believe that other people can be made to care about your opinions and views and be charmed by the way you state them. Incompetence, contempt, lunacy—once you have these in place, you are set to go."

You may also like:

• 

  Dana Gioia
  Poet

• 

  David Bezmozgis
  Writer

• 

  Francine Prose
  Writer

• 

  Frederic Raphael
  Screenwriter

• 

  Hilton Kramer
  Art critic

• 

  Michael Eric Dyson
  Author

• 

  Roger Kimball
  Editor

• 

  Simon Blackburn
  Academic

• 

  Wendy Wasserstein
  Playwright