Mediocrity is never passive; it avenges itself for its deprivation.
...the painter no longer in touch with people who don't look at pictures begins to die as a painter. The actor whose life has moved from the marketplace to the studio acts falsely. The novelist grown remote from people who don't read, becomes untrue to people who do read. The thinker who loses contact with people who don't think at all, no longer thinks justly. As the critic whose only wellspring is the work of other men at last gets to know all there is to know about literature. Except how to enjoy it...
Nelson Algren
...the painter no longer in touch with people who don't look at pictures begins to die as a painter. The actor whose life has moved from the marketplace to the studio acts falsely. The novelist grown remote from people who don't read, becomes untrue to people who do read. The thinker who loses contact with people who don't think at all, no longer thinks justly. As the critic whose only wellspring is the work of other men at last gets to know all there is to know about literature. Except how to enjoy it...
Nelson Algren
in Michael Ventura's Letters at 3 AM
Austin Chronicle 10.31.03
link path thru languagehat via commonbeauty
