January 2, 2014 Our Daily Correspondent, Quote Unquote New Year’s with Burroughs, Surprisingly Tame By Sadie Stein Firecrackers and whistles sounded the advent of the New Year of 1965 in St. Louis. Stripteasers ran from the bars in Gaslight Square to dance in the street when midnight came. Burroughs, who had watched television alone that night, was asleep in his room at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis’s most elegant. —William S. Burroughs, the Art of Fiction No. 36
December 17, 2013 Quote Unquote Many Happy Returns, Penelope Fitzgerald By Sadie Stein Image via the Guardian. “Everyone in Penelope Fitzgerald’s family called her Mops, no one ever called her Penelope unless they met her later in life. And she didn’t like the name Penelope. But it would seem very peculiar for me to call her Mops all the way through.” —Hermione Lee, the Art of Biography No. 4
December 13, 2013 Quote Unquote Life Sentence By Sadie Stein INTERVIEWER You’ve said you can’t bear to have a bad sentence in front of you. HEMPEL Yes. I still can’t. Makes me ill. —Amy Hempel, the Art of Fiction No. 176
December 5, 2013 Quote Unquote Dream Weaver By Sadie Stein INTERVIEWER You have said that writing is a hostile act; I have always wanted to ask you why. JOAN DIDION It’s hostile in that you’re trying to make somebody see something the way you see it, trying to impose your idea, your picture. It’s hostile to try to wrench around someone else’s mind that way. Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else’s dream, good or bad; nobody wants to walk around with it. The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to the dream. —Joan Didion, the Art of Fiction No. 71
December 3, 2013 Quote Unquote Gimme Shelter By Sadie Stein Image via Gutenberg. “The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.” —Edith Wharton, The Decoration of Houses, published on this day in 1897
December 2, 2013 Quote Unquote December By Sadie Stein Image via Papergreat “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” —Edith Sitwell