Quote

Beware the fictionist writing his own life. Even candor becomes a strategy.

Wilfrid Sheed

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Wilfrid Sheed
Age: 80 †
Born: 1930
Born: December 27
Died: 2011
Died: January 19
Novelist
London
England
Wilfrid John Joseph Sheed
Writing
Even
Life
Candor
Beware
Strategy
Becomes

More quotes by Wilfrid Sheed

Image
It is possible that the malice of writers has been overrated (by myself among others). Reading their ruminations on their craft, one sees why this writer could not possibly like that one, would indeed consider him a menace. Literature is a battleground of conflicting faiths, and nobler passions than envy are involved.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Whether or not Big Brother is watching us, we certainly have to watch him, which may be even worse.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
It's the old case against symbols: if you get them, they seem obvious and artificial, and if you don't, you miss the whole point.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Mushy reviews are a breach of faith
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
The town is as full as ever of 'characters,' all created by each other.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Scott Fitzgerald is a sound you like to hear at certain times of the day, say at four in the afternoon and again late at night, and at other times it makes you slightly sick.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Books about suicide make lousy gifts.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Mankind has always made too much of its saints and heroes, and how the latter handle the fuss might be called their final test.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Suicide is about life, being in fact the sincerest form of criticism life gets.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Mr Michener, as timeless as a stack of 'National Geographics,' is the ultimate Summer Writer. Just as one goes back to the cottage in Maine, so one goes back to one's Michener.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
You noodle around with tempo and sound until you get the perfect fit for that particular song, and then, so long as you can sustain it, God is on your side and everything comes easily and even the waiters smile.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Baseball fans are pedants, there is no other kind.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
The American male doesn't mature until he has exhausted all other possibilities.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Of course, history is only a muddle of facts and a fuddle of professors, and anyone who thinks it is one clear voice saying Arise, sir Knight deserves a life sentence in Camelot.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Censors will try to censor a little bit more each year (because, like editors and other officious people, censors don't feel they are getting anywhere unless they are up and doing).
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
The worse we treat people in this country, the more delicately we talk about them.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
As things now stand, the office is a slightly meaner battleground than the home. Male bosses seem to dominate their women underlings as they would never dominate their wives.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Saloons provide moments of genuine ecstasy - but only if your soul is at peace and the rest of your life bears contemplating. Otherwise, they are palaces of misery.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
The 1930s - a Golden Age for American humor, mainly because everything else was going so badly. The wisecrack was the basic American sentence because there were so many things that could not be said any other way.
Wilfrid Sheed
Image
Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves - all plot and no characters, or made-up characters - Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.
Wilfrid Sheed