James Atlas Quotes (8 Quotes)

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,

Biographers, we're weird. For whatever reasons of conditioning, our temporal sense is different from other people's, and I knew it would take 10 years. And that's just the way it is.

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

If I had to put my money on it, ... I'd say he's not going to read it. He might leaf through it. He's not going to sit down and read it.

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

A penumbra of somber dignity has descended over his reputation.

In writing this book I'm writing about my own life, a generation removed, ... But in the larger sense ... it was my discovery of Bellow's work, his voice that became for me the inspiration for this book. I was always fascinated by his life and wanted to know more about it.

She's a very conservative person and has exceedingly good judgment. Usually, she's telling me, 'Don't do this Mistake.' And this time, she said, 'I really think you should write this book, whether he wants you to or not.' To me, this was amazing. And she was right.