“Scott took LITERATURE so solemnly. He never understood that it was just writing as well as you can and finishing what you start.”

Reducing literary ambition to workmanship, persistence and completion · Letter to Arthur Mizener, 12 May 1950

• Perseverance
• Work
• Writing

“If you have a success, you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.”

Expressing deep suspicion of popularity as a reliable measure of artistic achievement · Conversation, recalled by Morley Callaghan

• Art
• Criticism
• Fame

“But never feel as good as while writing.”

A concise declaration of the pleasure he found in the act of writing itself · Letter to Malcolm Cowley, 14 November 1945

• Happiness
• Work
• Writing