A book, a true book, is the writer's confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

You can't be a good writer in the States anymore... Because to be a good one you have to have a country where you can be poor and still eat, and still make your living standards secondary to your writing. Thoreau himself couldn't do that in the States today...(Sept. 1953 letter to Millen Brand)

I am the penny whistle of American literature.