William Maxwell
William Maxwell
William Keepers Maxwell, Jr.was an American editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, children's author, and memoirist. He served as a fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975. An editor devoted to his writers, Maxwell became a legendary mentor and confidant to many of the most prominent authors of his day. Although best known as an editor, Maxwell was a highly respected and award winning novelist and short story writer. His stature as a celebrated author has grown...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth16 August 1908
lying past talking
In talking about the past, we lie with every breath we draw.
spring lying home
Sometimes she goes out to work as a practical nurse, and comes home and sits by the kitchen table soaking her feet in a pan of hot water and Epsom salts. When she gets into bed and the springs creak under her weight, she groans with the pleasure of lying stretched out on an object that understands her so well.
memories lying past
What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory--meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion--is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.
dream lying book
Because I actively enjoy sleeping, dreams, the unexplainable dialogues that take place in my head as I am drifting off, all that, I tell myself that lying down to an afternoon nap that goes on and on through eternity is not something to be concerned about. What spoils this pleasant fancy is the recollection that when people are dead they don't read books. This I find unbearable.
curiosity detail generation lacking landscape longer mind mostly older satisfy turn view whom
The view after 70 is breathtaking. What is lacking is someone, anyone, of the older generation to whom you can turn when you want to satisfy your curiosity about some detail of the landscape of the past. There is no longer any older generation. You have become it, while your mind was mostly on other matters.
body necessary perhaps short survives work
Perhaps a body of work isn't necessary for a short story writer. If you do one story that survives in an anthology, that's enough.
achieved arise balance both changes friend great grew including issues marriage mostly moving relationships son success toward
Wilkinson acknowledges, ''but I mostly side-stepped them. Still, in any relationship, including marriage, issues arise when the balance changes drastically or great success is achieved suddenly. It's only natural. You're both moving toward the same point, and some accommodation must be made. In my case, I grew out of being Bill's son to being something like a friend and colleague.
bosom cunning state
Some cunning speculations on the state of the weather, the state of the nation, and the state of the crops, and we were bosom friends in a twinkling.
gets interest literature
My interest in literature hasn't decreased. It just gets more passionate, actually.
almost liked living
I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living
across money
They're not making as much money on trading, and that's just consistently across the board.
feels presence work
This is how one feels in the presence of a work of art.
stopped totally unaware wife
My wife has to tell me I haven't said anything all day. I've stopped talking, and I'm totally unaware of it.
lovely students found
It was lovely when you found students who responded to things you were enthusiastic about.