James Salter
James Salter
James Arnold Horowitz, better known as James Salter, his pen name and later-adopted legal name, was an American novelist and short-story writer. Originally a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, he resigned from the military in 1957 following the successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 June 1925
CountryUnited States of America
began editing editor fox joe stepped until wound
It was not until I began to write a book called 'Light Years' that an editor really stepped in. The editor was Joe Fox at Random House, and he wound up editing a subsequent book.
close figure five flying further goes ground hundred known lost miles minute radar somehow somewhere takes travelling unless
I've known the anxiety of being completely lost, flying at night. It can be extreme. You're travelling at close to five hundred miles an hour, and every minute that goes by takes you further into being lost unless you get help from ground radar somewhere or somehow figure out the error.
art beauty civilization crude fights great hunting include listen manhood men presence seems sports talk war
It's great to listen to men talk about sports or fights or war or even hunting sometimes, but the presence of the other, the presence of art and beauty, which crude masculinity seems to discount, is essential. Real civilization and real manhood seem to me to include those.
everybody gives good john names piece whom writers
There are writers for whom names mean nothing; everybody could be called John and Elizabeth, and the writing would be just as good. A name, of course, is like a piece of clothing, isn't it? It gives you an impression right away.
tend
West Pointers tend to be rigorously honest - more than necessary, in my view.
course gives piece
A name, of course is like a piece of clothing, isn't it? It gives you an impression right away.
affect break interest less
The writing is really important in books that affect me. I read for the writing. The story is usually of less interest to me. It's the words that break your heart.
chance languages
Like books you will never have the chance to read, there are languages you do not know, and you're not going to get a chance to learn, so you'll never really know what was written, only the approximation.
america among cases feels itself ominous
Every nation feels itself to be superior, but in America it's a jaunty feeling, and in some cases a rather ominous one among the super-patriots.
coming curtain faces hearing life looking meeting open question seeing situation
There is no situation like the open road, and seeing things completely afresh. I'm used to traveling. It's not a question of meeting or seeing new faces particularly, or hearing new stories, but of looking at life in a different way. It's the curtain coming up on another act.
fortunate invented left man naked
Man was very fortunate to have invented the book. Without it, the past would completely vanish, and we would be left with nothing, we would be naked on earth.
death
The death of kings can be recited, but not of one's child.
above climbing crack east face feet high lightning rock roll slept spent thunder tom wall
I spent the night on a sliver of rock high up on the east face of Long's Peak, climbing with Tom Frost, and slept at the icy feet of the Dru, listening to the lightning crack above me and the thunder roll down. I only did it to write about it. I would never go up on the Grotto Wall for fun.
aesthetic gives ideal suppose tremendous trying
My ideal is a book that is perfect on every page, that gives you tremendous aesthetic joy on every page. I suppose I am trying to write such a book.