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
writing certain ifs
I like to write about certain things that if they are not written about are not going to exist.
writing novel great-things
I always knew writing a novel was a great thing.
writing who-i-am years
But that isn't my life. I have said many times I don't want to be considered one who once flew fighters. That's not who I am. I devoted the subsequent 50 years - more - to writing.
writing internet flowering
On the Internet, everyone is writing. There is a great flowering of writing.
writing ideas people
You can write about other people and their ideas and life without having lived it, but even your perception of that is going to be colored by what you know and what you experience. And this is undeniable.
writing views trying
I write down portions, maybe fragments, and perhaps an imperfect view of what Im hoping to write. Out of that, I keep trying to find exactly what I want.
zero writing way
If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.
writing ideas effort
My idea of writing is of unflinching and continual effort, somehow trying to find the right words until you reach a point where you can make no further progress and you either have something or you don’t.
writing decided
In 1957, I decided: write or perish.
writing opportunity joy
The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good, one way or another.
writing impulse ultimate
What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish.
dream real writing
There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.
book writing past
To write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be the prose and poems, the books, what is written down. 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.
business call entire fountain letters phone remember wrote
The publishers, as I remember at the very beginning of my career, wrote letters with their fountain pens. A letter is different from a phone call or fax. It's a different kind of intimacy. That pervaded the entire business of writing and publishing.