17 Quotes by James Atlas

He's someone who experiences a certain amount of bafflement about his talents. How did it happen? How did he become who he is?

If I could answer a critic, people like James Shapiro in the New York Times say that I extrapolate the life too directly and explicitly from the work,

I doubt the garrulous archive bequeathed us by the tape recorder will prove as memorable as Henry James's thank-you notes.

A penumbra of sombre dignity has descended over his reputation.

Writing is the worst part of being a writer.

To read Wilson.. is to be instructed and amused in the highest sense - that is, to be educated.

All of us, I suspect, imagine that a world exists from which we alone have been excluded; all of us have our noses pressed against the glass. But if we contemplate our own lives, not the phantom life on the other side, we might find things in them to envy-a family that’s intact; a job we like; excellent health (the thing we take for granted and on which all happiness depends). Good fortune is there, however sporadic, however modest, however difficult to achieve. The trick is to recognize it.

An account of some of these acts makes Henry Miller's crudest imaginations seem as chaste as a nun's diary.