Activity

MAY 8, 1952

More and more often I think back on Joan S., and feel my leaving her for Ginnie was the greatest mistake I ever made, both emotionally, and for my career. There is doubtless something like this in everyone’s life. That is why life on earth is not entirely heaven. Nor entirely hell, t…

5/7/52

With these serious people, these bons vivants, who take so much more seriously their amusements, their aesthetic surroundings, than any artist takes his work or his creative process, the creative process begins to atrophy in their presence, for the curious reason that their pursuit of p…

10/4/51

Autumns in the heart, and old tragedy, tears, the echo of pain and the hollow echo of a cry aloud in the midst of weeping. I stared at her until I no longer knew her or her name, knew only her form and her bones and the shadows at the sockets of her eyes, and then I began to draw, while …

8/31/51

As to plot: to what end is individual man tending? What does he want or aim for? To leave his son with a better established business than his father left him? To die wealthy? To enjoy life as soon as possible, and as much as possible? To win the love of a certain woman? To acquire fame a…

JULY 4, 1951

Tonight I felt fat, old, I heard my heart and felt mortal as mortal can be. It startled me so, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I was alone, a physical body that one day would run down and die and be buried. So I thought. It was dreadful. And unforgettable. Thirty—what a turning …