Activity

11/27/58

By the age of forty, one has amassed so many associations with music, colors, sounds, tastes, words, that it is possible to foresee life becoming unbearable. Every Beethoven sonata drags a nightmare in its wake. Every scent that women wear brings tears and trembling.

9/29/57

On concentrating. (For The Writer possibly). A small matter, concentrating. But how many young writers can do it? It is not a new typewriter, a cushion in the chair, even necessarily stimulating or tranquilizing music playing. For most people, it is a guarantee of privacy. One cannot tel…

1/18/57

My growing problem since 1951: (in Riesman’s terms) from inner-directed (ambitious, idealistic, self-driving, diary-keeping) I have become somewhat other-directed; and this is against my nature, or at least my nature until the age of thirty. Among its manifestations (which irritate the i…

7/13/56

Life—existence—getting along with people—or even getting along totally with oneself—is a matter of compromise. A platitude. But the wisdom (or the stupidity) depends on the things one compromises with, and also one’s sense of humor, or detachment, or earnestness, in compromising. It is t…

11/15/55

N.W. [Natica Waterbury]. She will make some desperate marriage at 38, perhaps, which won’t last, but if it lasts two years may give her (or her age will) that poise and confidence in her own special personality, which she so badly needs. She is so far superior to most in an intellectual…