I Don’t Mind If You Don’t Like

It Is Wrong To Be Harsh With The New York Critics, Unless One Admits In The Same Breath That It Is A Condition Of Their Existence That They Should Write Entertainingly About Something Which Is Rarely Worth Writing About At All.

Would You Convey My Compliments To The Purist Who Reads Your Proofs And Tell Him Or Her That I Write In A Sort Of Broken-down Patois Which Is Something Like The Way A Swiss Waiter Talks, And That When I Split An Infinitive, God Damn It, I Split It So It Will Stay Split, And When I Interrupt The Velvety Smoothness Of My More Or Less Literate Syntax With A Few Sudden Words Of Bar-room Vernacular, That Is Done With The Eyes Wide Open And The Mind Relaxed But Attentive.

I Have Made Three Rules Of Writing For Myself That Are Absolutes: Never Take Advice. Never Show Or Discuss Work In Progress. Never Answer A Critic.

He Was A Guy Who Talked With Commas, Like A Heavy Novel. Over The Phone Anyway.

A City With All The Personality Of A Paper Cup. (on Los Angeles)