William Styron
William Styron
William Clark Styron Jr.was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 June 1925
CityNewport News, VA
CountryUnited States of America
thinking evil fiction
I think that one of the compelling themes of fiction is this confrontation between good and evil.
thinking critics unfortunate
I think it's unfortunate to have critics for friends.
thinking dirt would-be
My life and work have been far from free of blemish, and so I think it would be unpardonable for a biographer not to dish up the dirt.
blessed thinking games
I think that the best of my generation...have reversed the customary rules of the game and have grown more radical as they have gotten older - a disconcerting but healthy sign. To be sure, there are many youngish old fogies around and even the most illustrious of these, William Buckley, is blessed by a puzzling, recondite but undeniable charm, almost as if beneath that patrician exterior an egalitarian was signaling to get out.
writing men thinking
From the writer's point of view, critics should be ignored, although it's hard not to do what they suggest. I think it's unfortunate to have critics for friends. Suppose you write something that stinks, what are they going to say in a review? Say it stinks? So if they're honest, they do, and if you were friends you're still friends, but the knowledge of your lousy writing and their articulate admission of it will be always something between the two of you, like the knowledge between a man and his wife of some shady adultery.
writing thinking hands
I try to get a feeling of what's going on in the story before I put it down on paper, but actually most of this breaking-in period is one long, fantastic daydream, in which I think about anything but the work at hand. I can't turn out slews of stuff each day. I wish I could. I seem to have some neurotic need to perfect each paragraph—each sentence, even—as I go along.
sadness mean thinking
I have learned to cry again and I think perhaps that means I am a human being again. Perhaps that at least. A piece of human being but, yes, a human being.
occur
It did not occur to me that there would be many difficulties to impede my ambition. . . .
basically black book heart incorrect man seize soul trying white written
Basically it is a very politically incorrect book written by a white man trying to seize his own interpretation and put it into the soul and heart of a black man.
american-novelist
And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.
american-novelist great leave lives several slightly
A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
along constants core delights nice
They are the constants of life, at the core of life, along with nice little delights that come along every now and then . . . we all have them.
america fight seems various
In America there seems to be an idea that writing is one big cat-and-dog fight between the various parishioners of the craft.
added compose white
I could compose on white sheets, in longhand, but it would be an added handicap. . . .