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I've always felt strongly that a writer shouldn't be engaged with other writers, or with people who make books, or even with people who read them. I think the farther away you get from the literary traffic, the closer you are to sources.

— Nelson Algren The Art of Fiction No. 11 (1955)

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More quotes by Nelson Algren

A man who won't demean himself for a dollar is a phoney to my way of thinking.

What country is there for a white man who isn't white?

The clock in the room above the Safari told only Junkie Time.

The Man with the Golden Arm (1949)

A writer who knows what he is doing isn't doing very much.

I am the penny whistle of American literature.

All Nelson Algren quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Nelson Algren (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.