The Paris Review’ was always the pinnacle: it was the place to be published. You were thrilled if you were published in ‘The Paris Review,’ and George Plimpton himself was practically mythical. He was a legendary figure. James Salter Read Quote
Certain people can keep a word tune, so to speak, and certain people cannot. And, above all, certain people can tell a story, and other people can’t. They don’t hear that point where something else has to come. James Salter Read Quote
I’m a ‘frotteur,’ someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible. Does that word in this sentence have any electric potential? Does it do anything? Too much electricity will make your reader’s hair frizzy. There’s a question of pacing. James Salter Read Quote
Although I’ve made notes for things and even written synopses sitting in trains or on park benches, for the complete composition of things I need absolute solitude, preferably an empty house. James Salter Read Quote
The writers of books are companions in one’s life and, as such, are often more interesting than other companions. James Salter Read Quote
I’ve known the anxiety of being completely lost, flying at night. It can be extreme. You’re travelling at close to five hundred miles an hour, and every minute that goes by takes you further into being lost unless you get help from ground radar somewhere or somehow figure out the error. James Salter Read Quote
Most writers can write three times as many books as I have and still live a life. James Salter Read Quote
I love to write about Nabokov and also to think about him. I love his attitude that he is incomparable, his lofty judgments and general scorn of other writers – not all of them, of course. James Salter Read Quote
