“It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.”
“But the idea of a man making his living by writing seemed, in that hardy environment, so fantastic that even today I am sometimes myself assailed by a feeling of unreality.”
“But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember – that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.”
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
“I became a writer in spite of my environments.”
“I had neither expert aid nor advice. I studied no courses in writing; until a year or so ago, I never read a book by anybody advising writers how to write.”
“I have accomplished little enough, but such as it is, it is the result of my own efforts.”
“I have not been a success, and probably never will be.”
“Never the less, at the age of fifteen, having never seen a writer, a poet, a publisher or a magazine editor, and having only the vaguest ideas of procedure, I began working on the profession I had chosen.”
“Never the less, it is no light thing to enter into a profession absolutely foreign and alien to the people among which one’s lot is cast; a profession which seems as dim and faraway and unreal as the shores of Europe.”
“The people among which I lived – and yet live, mainly – made their living from cotton, wheat, cattle, oil, with the usual percentage of business men and professional men.”
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