“In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe.”

via Counterpoint Press

I didn’t mean to write about him, even think about him. —He was a hero of mine until I came to realize some things: what I really liked was the prose. Some of it just breathtaking. It was not about the plot or the story. And he died too late to circumvent the last novel. I don’t know if the prose came to life further into All That Is, I turned away before I could say one way or another. And he personally failed me. (I always take my writers personally.) — But I happened across “Why I Write” in Lit Hub and so I came to be here once more. So there’s the quote and there’s the photo, of a much younger Salter than the one we buried. Indeed. It is for the moment what you understand, and believe.