by Mason Currey
186. “As soon as I”: Boswell in Holland, 37.
187. “vile habit of”: Ibid.
188. “I have thought of”: Ibid., 198.
189. “My affairs are”: Boswell’s London Journal, 183–4.
190. “dreary as a”: Boswell in Holland, 210.
191. “Everything is insipid”: Ibid., 197.
192. “It gives me a”: Ibid., 45.
193. “comforts and enlivens”: Boswell’s London Journal, 189.
194. “the dignity of”: Boswell in Holland, 388.
195. “Life has much”: Ibid., 389.
196. Immanuel Kant: Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
197. “The history of Kant’s life”: Quoted ibid., 14.
198. “a certain uniformity”: Quoted ibid., 153.
199. “Kant had formulated”: Ibid., 222.
200. William James: Robert D. Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006); William James, Habit (New York: Henry Holt, 1914).
201. “Recollect,” he wrote: Quoted in Richardson, 121.
202. the “great thing”: James, 54.
203. “make our nervous”: Ibid.
204. “James on habit”: Richardson, 240.
205. “I know a”: Quoted ibid., 238.
206. Henry James: H. Montgomery Hyde, Henry James at Home (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969).
207. “It’s all about”: Quoted ibid., 152.
208. Franz Kafka: Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice, ed. Erich Heller and Jürgen Born, trans. James Stern and Elisabeth Duckworth (New York: Schocken Books, 1973); Louis Begley, The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay (New York: Atlas & Co., 2008).
209. “single shift” system: Begley, 29.
210. “time is short”: Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer, November 1, 1912, in Letters to Felice, 21–2.
211. James Joyce: Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (1959; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); John McCourt, James Joyce: A Passionate Exile (London: Orion, 2000).
212. “A man of”: Quoted in Ellmann, 6.
213. “the mind is”: Quoted ibid., 308.
214. “He woke about”: Ibid.
215. “No,” he replied: Quoted in McCourt, 73.
216. “diversified,” as he put it: Quoted ibid., 91.
217. “I calculate that”: Quoted in Ellmann, 510.
218. Marcel Proust: Celeste Albaret and Georges Belmont, Monsieur Proust, trans. Barbara Bray (1973; repr. New York: New York Review Books, 2001); Ronald Hayman, Proust: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1990); Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Volume VI: Time Regained, trans. Andreas Mayor, Terence Kilmartin, D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 1993).
219. “It is truly”: Quoted in Hayman, 346.
220. “It isn’t an”: Albaret and Belmont, 70.
221. “After ten pages”: Quoted in Hayman, 251.
222. “You’re putting your”: Quoted ibid., 331.
223. “it almost seems”: Proust, 318.
224. Samuel Beckett: Paul Strathern, Beckett in 90 Minutes (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005); Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett: A Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978).
225. “It was spent”: Strathern, 45–6.
226. “dark he had”: Ludovic Janvier quoted in Bair, 351.
227. “I shall always”: Quoted in Bair, 352.
228. Igor Stravinsky: Stephen Walsh, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring: Russia and France, 1882–1934 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999); Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978).
229. “I get up at”: Quoted in Walsh, 419.
230. “I have never”: Quoted ibid., 115.
231. “rests the head”: Quoted in Stravinsky and Craft, 298.
232. Erik Satie: Robert Orledge, Satie Remembered (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1995).
233. “walked slowly”: Quoted ibid., 69.
234. “the possibility of”: Quoted ibid.
235. Pablo Picasso: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: The Cubist Rebel, 1907–1916 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); Francoise Gilo and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964).
236. “After the shabby”: Richardson, 43.
237. “He rarely spoke”: Quoted ibid., 147.
238. “the artist veered”: Ibid., 146.
239. “That’s why painters”: Quoted in Gilo and Lake, 116.
240. Jean-Paul Sartre: Annie Cohen-Solal, Jean-Paul Sartre: A Life, trans. Anna Cancogni, ed. Norman Macafee (1985; repr. New York: Dial Press, 2005); Deirdre Bair, Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography (New York: Touchstone, 1990).
241. “One can be”: Quoted in Cohen-Solal, 286.
242. “His diet over”: Ibid., 374.
243. “I thought that”: Quoted ibid., 374–5.
244. T. S. Eliot: James E. Miller Jr., T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005); Allen Tate, ed., T. S. Eliot: The Man and His Work (New York: Delacorte Press, 1966); Lyndall Gordon, T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
245. “I am sojourning”: Quoted in Miller, 325.
246. “a figure stooping”: Quoted in Tate, 3–4.
247. “I am now”: Quoted in Miller, 278.
248. “the prospect of”: Quoted in Gordon, 197.
249. Dmitry Shostakovich: Laurel E. Fay, Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
250. “I always found”: Quoted in Fay, 46.
251. “appeared to be”: Quoted in Wilson, 194.
252. “I discovered him”: Quoted ibid., 197.
253. “He would play”: Quoted ibid.
254. “I worry about”: Quoted ibid., 196.
255. Henry Green: Jeremy Treglown, Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green (New York: Random House, 2000); interview with Terry Southern, “The Art of Fiction No. 22: Henry Green,” Paris Review, Summer 1958, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4800/the-art-of-fiction-no-22-henry-green.
256. “Though he occasionally”: Treglown, 95.
257. “Yes, yes, oh yes”: Interview with Southern.
258. Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie, An Autobiography (New York: HarperCollins, 1977).
259. “The funny thing”: Ibid., 431.
260. “All I needed”: Ibid., 432.
261. “Many friends have”: Ibid.
262. Somerset Maugham: Jeffrey Meyers, Somerset Maugham: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).
263. “Maugham thought that”: Ibid., 37.
264. “When you’re writing”: Quoted ibid., 37–8.
265. Graham Greene: Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, Volume Two: 1939–1955 (New York, Viking: 1994); Henry J. Donaghy, ed., Conversations with Graham Greene (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992).
266. “a nine-till-five”: Christopher Burstall, “Graham Greene Takes the Orient Express,” The Listener, November 21, 1969, in Donaghy, 60–1.
267. Joseph Cornell: Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997).
268. Sylvia Plath: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950–1962, ed. Karen V. Kukil (New York: Anchor Books, 2000); Janet Malcolm, The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (1993; repr. New York: Vintage Books, 1995).
269. “From now on”: Sylvia Plath, December 7, 1959, in Journals, 457.
270. She was using: Malcolm, 61.
271. “I am a genius”: Quoted ibid., 61–2.
272. John Cheever: Blake Bailey, Cheever: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009); John Cheever, The Journals of John Cheever (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).
273. “When I was younger”: Quoted in Bailey, 92–3.
274. “Almost every morning”: Ibid., 137.
275. “achieve some equilibrium”: Cheever, 22–3.
276. “The hours between”: Ibid., 277–8.
277. “the horniest man”: Quoted in Bailey, 422.
278. “two or three orgasms”: Quoted ibid., 433.
279. “With a stiff prick”: Quoted ibid., 568.
280. “I must convince”: Cheever, 255.
281. Louis Armstrong: Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009).
282. described by Terry Teachout: Ibid., 288–93.
283. “It’s been hard”: Quoted ibid., 371.
284. W. B. Yeats: Warwick Gould, John Kelly, and Deirdre Toomey, eds., The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats, Volume 2, 1896–1900 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life, I: The Apprentice Mage, 1865–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Peter Kuch, Yeats and A.E.: “The Antagonism That Unites Dear Friends” (Totawa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1986).
285. “I read from”: W. B. Yeats to Edwin Ellis, August 16, 1912, quoted in Foster, 468.
286. According to another: Kuch, 14.
287. “Every change upsets”: W. B. Yeats to J. B. Yeats, November 1, 1898, in Gould et al., 282.
288. “I am a very”: W. B. Yeats to William D. Fitts, August 19, 1899, in Gould et al., 439.
289. “One has to give”: W. B. Yeats to Robert Bridges, June 6, 1897, in Gould et al., 111.
290. Wallace Stevens: Peter Brazeau, Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered (New York: Random House, 1983); Milton J. Bates, Wallace Stevens: A Mythology of Self (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985).
291. “I find that”: Quoted in Bates, 157.
292. Kingsley Amis: Interview with Michael Barber, “The Art of Fiction No. 59: Kingsley Amis,” Paris Review, Winter 1975, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3772/the-art-of-fiction-no-59-kingsley-amis; Eric Jacobs, Kingsley Amis: A Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995).
293. “Yes. I don’t”: Interview with Barber.
294. Amis’s routine shifted: Jacobs, 1–18.
295. Martin Amis: Interview with Francesca Riviere, “The Art of Fiction No. 151: Martin Amis,” Paris Review, Spring 1998, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1156/the-art-of-fiction-no-151-martin-amis.
296. Umberto Eco: Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, “The Art of Fiction No. 197: Umberto Eco,” Paris Review, Summer 2008, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5856/the-art-of-fiction-no-197-umberto-eco.
297. Woody Allen: Eric Lax, Conversations with Woody Allen: His Films, the Movies, and Moviemaking (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).
298. “obsessive thinking”: Ibid., 119.
299. “I’ve found over”: Ibid., 78.
300. “I think in the”: Ibid., 117.
301. David Lynch: Richard A. Barney, ed., David Lynch: Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009); David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity (2006; repr. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007).
302. “I like things”: Quoted in Richard B. Woodward, “A Dark Lens on America,” New York Times Magazine, January 14, 1990, in Barney, 50.
303. “I have never”: Lynch, 5.
304. “We waste so”: Ibid., 55.
305. Maya Angelou: Jeffrey M. Elliot, ed., Conversations with Maya Angelou (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989).
306. “I try to keep”: Interview with Walter Blum, “Listening to Maya Angelou,” California Living, December 14, 1975, in Elliot, 153.
307. “I usually get”: Interview with Claudia Tate, Black Women Writers at Work (New York: Continuum, 1983), in Elliot, 40.
308. “I have always”: Quoted in Judith Rich, “Life Is for Living,” Westways, September 1987, in Elliot., 79.
309. George Balanchine: Mason Francis, ed., I Remember Balanchine: Recollections of the Ballet Master by Those Who Knew Him (New York: Doubleday, 1991); Bernard Taper, Balanchine: A Biography (1984; repr. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996).
310. “When I’m ironing”: Quoted in Francis, 418.
311. “My muse must”: Quoted in Taper, 13.
312. Al Hirschfeld: Al Hirschfeld, Hirschfeld On Line (New York: Applause Books, 1999).
313. “In his 90s”: Mel Gussow, introduction to ibid., 18.
314. “Very often, when”: Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, “Looking Over His Shoulder,” in Hirschfeld, 24.
315. Truman Capote: Interview with Pati Hill, “The Art of Fiction No. 17: Truman Capote,” Paris Review, Spring–Summer 1957, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4867/the-art-of-fiction-no-17-truman-capote.
316. Richard Wright: Hazel Rowley, Richard Wright: The Life and Times (New York: Henry Holt, 2001).
317. As Hazel Rowley details: Ibid., 153–5.
318. “I never intend”: Quoted ibid., 162.
319. H. L. Mencken: Fred Hobson, Mencken: A Life (New York: Random House, 1994); Carl Bode, ed., The New Mencken Letters (New York: Dial Press, 1977).
320. “Like most men”: H. L. Mencken to A. O. Bowden, April 12, 1932, in Bode, 262.
321. “Looking back over”: Quoted in Hobson, xvi–xvii.
322. Philip Larkin: Interview with Robert Phillips, “The Art of Poetry No. 30: Philip Larkin,” Paris Review, Summer 1982, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3153/the-art-of-poetry-no-30-philip-larkin; Philip Larkin, “Aubade,” in Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite (1988; repr. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989).
323. “I work all”: Larkin., 208.
324. “My life is”: Interview with Phillips.
325. “I was brought up”: Ibid.
326. “After that you’re”: Ibid.
327. Frank Lloyd Wright: Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed., Frank Lloyd Wright: The Crowning Decade, 1949–1959 (Fresno: California State University, 1989); David V. Mollenhoff and Mary Jane Hamilton, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Monona Terrace: The Enduring Power of a Civic Vision (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
328. “Between 4 and 7”: Quoted in Mollenhoff and Hamilton, 113.
329. “Perhaps it was”: “Olgivanna Lloyd Wright on Her Husband,” in Pfeiffer, 122.
330. “I could not”: Ibid.
331. Louis I. Kahn: Carter Wiseman, Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007).
332. “Lou had so much”: Quoted ibid., 87.
333. George Gershwin: Howard Pollack, George Gershwin: His Life and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
334. “To me George”: Quoted ibid., 175.
335. “Like the pugilist”: Quoted ibid.
336. Joseph Heller: Adam J. Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993).
337. “I spent two”: Interview with Sam Merrill, Playboy, June 1975, in ibid., 163.
338. “most intelligent”: Quoted in Ann Waldron, “Writing Technique, Say Joseph Heller,” Houston Chronicle, March 2, 1975, in Sorkin, 135.
339. “I wrote for”: Interview with Sam Merrill, Playboy, June 1975, in Sorkin, 165.
340. “I am a chronic”: Ibid., 161.
341. “It’s an everyday”: Interview with Creath Thorne, Chicago Literary Review: Book Supplement to the Chicago Maroon, December 3, 1974, in Sorkin, 128.
342. “I write very”: Quoted in Curt Suplee, “Catching Up with Joseph Heller,” Washington Post, October 8, 1984, in Sorkin, 239.
343. James Dickey: Henry Hart, James Dickey: The World as a Lie (New York: Picador USA, 2000).
344. “Every time I”: Quoted ibid., 214–5.
345. “If they said”: Quoted ibid., 215–6.
346. “After five and”: Quoted ibid., 262.
347. Nikola Tesla: Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (New York: Touchstone, 2001).
348. “I’ve had many”: Quoted ibid., 54.
349. Glenn Go
uld: Kevin Bazzana, Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Andrew Kazdin, Glenn Gould at Work: Creative Lying (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989); Glenn Gould in The Life and Times of Glenn Gould, CBC Television, March 13, 1998, accessed on April 2, 2010, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Mm_b5lHvU&feature=related.
350. “most experienced hermit”: Quoted in Bazzana, 320.
351. “I don’t think”: Quoted ibid., 318.
352. “I tend to follow”: Gould, CBC Television.
353. “for Gould, everything”: Kazdkin, 25.
354. “I don’t approve of”: Quoted in Bazzana, 322.
355. “best playing I do”: Quoted ibid., 326.
356. “He was known”: Ibid., 321.
357. “routinely ran to”: Ibid.
358. fasting, he said: Kazdin, 64.
359. Louise Bourgeois: Marie-Laure Bernadac and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, eds., Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father/Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews 1923–1997 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).
360. “My life has”: Interview with Douglas Maxwell, Modern Painters, Summer 1993, in ibid., 239.
361. “Each day is”: Louis Bourgeois, “Tender Compulsions,” World Art, February 1995, in Bernadac and Obrist, 306.
362. “I work like”: Louise Bourgeois, “Sixty-one Questions,” 1971, in Bernadac and Obrist, 96.
363. Chester Himes: Michel Fabre and Robert E. Skinner, eds., Conversations with Chester Himes (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995).
364. “I like to”: Michel Fabre, “Chester Himes Direct,” Hard-Boiled Dicks, December 1983, in Fabre and Skinner, 130.
365. Flannery O’Connor: Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor (New York: Little, Brown, 2009).
366. “routine is a”: Quoted ibid., 222.
367. “I may tear”: Quoted ibid., 225.
368. “I go to bed”: Quoted ibid., 228.
369. “I read a lot”: Quoted ibid.
370. William Styron: Interview with Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton, “The Art of Fiction No. 5: William Styron,” Paris Review, Spring 1954, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5114/the-art-of-fiction-no-5-william-styron; James L. W. West III, ed., Conversations with William Styron (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985).