Tag Archives: system d

J has his own System D for going to sleep. He reads my Joyce and my Borges and conks right out. I don’t think he means as a criticism. Wilfrid Sheed doesn’t seem to think anyone has to:

“Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail,” is how Sam Johnson, blues singer, described the writer’s life. Then there was Joseph Conrad, comparing writing to carrying heavy bales under a low rope on a hot day. (I’ll admit reading Conrad can be like that, for all that it’s worth it. If “easy writing makes damn hard reading,” your hard writing can be a real mother.) [From "The Company of writers," The Good Word & Other Words]

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