1
All you need do, Bernie, ”she gulped her toast soaked in coffee, “is present the truth as fiction.James Purdy
2
But failure has kept Curt at home like a nice warm dachshund.James Purdy
3
The last human of importance the American people have been able to keep in the working end of their brain is your own Chicago triggerman, Dillinger. After him they kind of lost hold on keeping who’s who straight. So don’t be surprised if they don’t remember who Cabot Wright is, or if they do.James Purdy
4
If the book’s bad enough, they’ll publish it, and if it’s bad bad enough, the daily reviewers will love it, and it’ll sell.James Purdy
5
And yet Curt’s a real writer too. His machinery is stuck, that’s all.James Purdy
6
Curt, my husband, is a writer, and he’ll never write again. That’s our funeral, as they say down south. Now in your case, my pet, you’re married to a phenomenon of our own special epoch, a man who couldn’t in a thousand years be a writer in the only meaning of the term, but who can and probably will write a book.James Purdy
7
He’s America in action – opposed to quality.James Purdy
8
She was a church open only for him, with services in full operation twenty-four hours a day.James Purdy