He couldn't write without seeing the writing; though he could picture what the sentences pictured, he couldn't picture the sentences unless he saw them unfold and fasten one to the other.
- from The Anatomy Lesson
Meanwhile, [E. I. Lonoff] was saying to me, "I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning. And if I knock off from this routine for as long as a day, I'm frantic with boredom and a sense of waste.... I sit back down at my little Olivetti and start looking at sentences and turning them around. And I ask myself, Why is there no way but this for me to fill my hours?"
- from The Ghost Writer
[I]f Olivettis could talk, you'd get the novelist naked.
- from The Anatomy Lesson
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Dear Philip Roth,
Screw you for making being brilliant look easy.
Signed,
Clueless in Cleveland
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