William Maxwell
William Maxwell
William Keepers Maxwell, Jr.was an American editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, children's author, and memoirist. He served as a fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975. An editor devoted to his writers, Maxwell became a legendary mentor and confidant to many of the most prominent authors of his day. Although best known as an editor, Maxwell was a highly respected and award winning novelist and short story writer. His stature as a celebrated author has grown...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth16 August 1908
spring lying home
Sometimes she goes out to work as a practical nurse, and comes home and sits by the kitchen table soaking her feet in a pan of hot water and Epsom salts. When she gets into bed and the springs creak under her weight, she groans with the pleasure of lying stretched out on an object that understands her so well.
nails circumstances magnet
The nail doesn't choose the time or the circumstances in which it is drawn to the magnet
dog hunting imagination
If you turn the imagination loose like a hunting dog, it will often return with the bird in its mouth.
doors gone get-back
I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn’t have gone through and couldn’t get back to the place I hadn’t meant to leave.
emulation reader moved
A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation.
humility people serious
People often ask themselves the right questions. Where they fail is in answering the questions they ask themselves, and even there they do not fail by much...But it takes time, it takes humility and a serious reason for searching.
lovely students found
It was lovely when you found students who responded to things you were enthusiastic about.
people deprivation ifs
It's deprivation that makes people writers, if they have it in them to be a writer.
sensitive considering knows
Who knows what oversensitive is, considering all there is to be sensitive to.
people choices strange
The reason life is so strange is that so often people have no choice,
literature reader
Your reader is at least as bright as you are
father understanding authority
My father represented authority, which meant—to me—that he could not also represent understanding.
cat walks
I am the cat that walks alone.
lying past talking
In talking about the past, we lie with every breath we draw.