James Salter
James Salter
James Arnold Horowitz, better known as James Salter, his pen name and later-adopted legal name, was an American novelist and short-story writer. Originally a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, he resigned from the military in 1957 following the successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 June 1925
CountryUnited States of America
everybody gives good john names piece whom writers
There are writers for whom names mean nothing; everybody could be called John and Elizabeth, and the writing would be just as good. A name, of course, is like a piece of clothing, isn't it? It gives you an impression right away.
lies life obviously rather room telling writers
I sometimes say that I don't make anything up - obviously that's not true. But I am uninterested in writers who say that everything comes out of the imagination. I would rather be in a room with someone who is telling the story of his life, which may be exaggerated and even have lies in it, but I want to hear the true story, essentially.
hope man
I would say that I am a jaded man beyond most expectations, but, like everyone else, I still have hope.
devoted
I have said many times I don't want to be considered one who once flew fighters. That's not who I am. I devoted the subsequent 50 years - more - to writing.
arbitrary classified invented notion presumably strikes wholly
The notion that anything can be invented wholly and that these invented things are classified as 'fiction' and that other writing, presumably not made up, is called 'nonfiction' strikes me as a very arbitrary separation of things.
until
As a writer, you aren't anybody until you become somebody.
elevated encouraged everywhere good produces producing programs
The writing workshops and programs that are everywhere have encouraged writing. And if that produces more writing, it's also producing more readers of an elevated level. So all in all, a good thing.
editorial merely might published took
My first book was published without any editorial advice. Nobody said, 'You might do this or that,' or 'Why don't we see more of this.' I merely took the book and published it.
admitted ranks unless
You can't be admitted to the ranks of writers of importance unless you have sales.
dream real writing
There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.
enthusiasm states
Hope but not enthusiasm is the proper state for the writer.
dream lying fall
WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.
way-to-live tabloids opinion
I don't hold myself dictated to by what everyone is saying, by the tabloids or popular opinion. I don't like bourgeois values. I say you find your own way to live.
claims entitled
You are perfectly entitled to invent your life and to claim that it's true.