Literary Rogues (38 page)

178
interesting poetess
:
Annie Hall
, directed by Woody Allen (MGM, 2000), DVD.

179
What ended that was Bob Dylan
: Personal interview with Elizabeth Wurtzel, 2011.

179
deep and moving work
: Eugene Pool, “Anne Sexton, Her Kind Mix Poetry with Music,”
The Boston Globe
(May 27, 1969).

179
young upstart
: Mariani,
Dream Song
, p. 445.

19: THE MERRY PRANKSTERS

181
People don't want other people
: Scott MacFarlane,
The Hippie Narrative: A Literary Perspective on the Counterculture
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007), p. 15.

181
the whole gang around
: George-Warren, ed.,
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats
, p. 361.

182
I've seen God
: Lewis Hyde, ed.,
On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), p. 126.

183
Acid is just a chemical illusion
: Tom Underwood and Chuck Miller, eds.,
Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), p. 43.

183
a great new American novelist
: Ken Kesey,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: The Viking Critical Edition
, ed. John Clark Pratt (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 332.

184
I was too young
: Rob Elder, “Down on the Peacock Farm,”
Salon.com
(November 16, 2001), http://www.salon.com/2001/11/16/kesey99/(retrieved July 2, 2012).

184
I write all the time
:
Magic Trip
, directed by Alex Gibney and Alison Elwood (Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2011), DVD.

184
The bravest man in America
: Peter Manso,
Mailer: His Life and Times
(New York: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 261.

184
Ginsberg is a tremendous warrior
: Todd Brendan Fahey, “Comes Spake the Cuckoo,”
Far Gone Books
(1992), http://www.fargonebooks.com/kesey.html (retrieved July 2, 2012).

185
Go in peace
: George-Warren, ed.,
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats
, p. 240.

185
used to think we were going to win
: Lawrence Gerald, “A 1992 New York Interview with Ken Kesey,”
SirBacon.org
, http://www.sirbacon.org/4membersonly/kesey.htm (retrieved July 2, 2012).

185
We're only a small number
: Ibid.

20: THE NEW JOURNALISTS

187
I'm an alcoholic
: M. Thomas Inge, ed.,
Truman Capote: Conversations
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1987), p. 364.

187
Part of me thought it was
: Peter Manso,
Mailer: His Life and Times
(New York: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 119.

188
that awful man who stabbed
: Meade,
Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
, p. 367.

188
prime the pump
: Norman Mailer,
The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing
(New York: Random House, 2003), p. 19.

188
not a weekend went by
: Eric Olsen and Glenn Schaeffer,
We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop
(New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011), p. 182.

189
Take off your clothes
: Denham,
Sleeping With Bad Boys
, p. 53.

189
a good night for you two
: Ibid.

189
I tried to remember what
: Ibid.

190
You don't know anything about a woman
: Michael Lennon and Donna Pedro Lennon,
Norman Mailer: Works and Days
(Shavertown, PA: Sligo Press, 2000), p. 114.

190
a tremendously sexy man
: Wakefield,
New York in the Fifties
, p. 148.

190
enemy of birth control
: Charles McGrath, “Norman Mailer, Towering Writer with a Matching Ego, Dies at 84,”
New York Times
, November 11, 2007.

190
a really exciting
:
Dissent
7, no. 1 (1960): 392.

191
attacked him with a hammer
: Sally Beauman, “Norman Mailer, Movie Maker,”
New York
, August 19, 1968, p. 56.

191
He is a man whose faults
: Gore Vidal,
Sex, Death, and Money
(New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 178.

191
He could reliably be counted on
: McGrath, “Norman Mailer, Towering Writer.”

191
I like to talk on TV
: Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, and Andrew Frothingham, eds.,
And I Quote
(New York: Macmillan, 1992), p. 328; no definite attribution exists for this quote, although Capote certainly may have said it in one of his many frivolous television interviews.

191
I've always been solitary
: Beauman, “Norman Mailer, Movie Maker,” p. 147.

192
Truman was wearing a little
: George Plimpton,
Truman Capote
(New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1998), p. 104.

192
a ballsy little guy
: Norman Mailer,
Advertisements for Myself
(Boston: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 465.

192
the most perfect writer of my generation
: Ibid.

192
I had to be successful
: Alan F. Pater and Jason R. Pater, eds.,
What They Said in 1978: The Yearbook of Spoken Opinion
(Los Angeles: Monitor Book Company, 1979), p. 421.

192
I began writing really sort of
: Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy,
Who the Hell Is Pansy O'Hara?
(New York: Penguin Books, 2008), p. 282.

193
Lee protected him from bullies
: Andrew Haggerty,
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
(Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 2008), p. 19.

193
as if he were dreamily
: Jeffrey Helterman and Richard Layman,
American Novelists Since World War II
(Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Research, 1978), p. 83.

193
I feel anxious that Truman
: Robert Emmett Long,
Truman Capote—Enfant Terrible
(London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008), p. 50.

194
which is sad, because
: Philip Gourevitch, ed.,
The Paris Review Interviews
(New York: Macmillan, 2009), p. 33.

194
a really serious big work
:
The Saturday Review
49 (1966): p. 37.

194
very closest friends
: Albin Krebs, “Truman Capote Is Dead at 59; Novelist of Style and Clarity,”
New York Times
, August 28, 1984.

195
We were a little chilly
: Plimpton,
Truman Capote
, p. 214.

195
He accelerated the speed
: Krebs, “Truman Capote Is Dead at 59.”

195
This is just like the book
: Gerald Clarke,
Capote: A Biography
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), p. 438.

196
spoke badly of other writers
: Plimpton,
Truman Capote
, p. 43.

196
This isn't writing
: Krebs, “Truman Capote Is Dead at 59.”

196
you queer bastard
: George-Warren, ed.,
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats
, p. 109.

196
Finishing a book is just
: Applewhite, Evans, and Frothingham, eds.,
And I Quote
, p. 309; while this quote is widely attributed to Capote, I've never found a good source for it.

197
they're too dumb
:
Cosmopolitan
205 (1988): p. 181.

197
Writers don't have to destroy
: Plimpton,
Truman Capote
, p. 43.

197
He's Truman. What can you do
: Ibid., p. 69.

197
When God hands you a gift
: Andrew Holleran, “Five-Finger Exercise,”
New York
, August 18, 1980, 69.

197
Let me go. I want to go
:
Biography: Truman Capote
(A&E Home Video, 2005), DVD.

198
a good career move
: Anthony Arthur,
Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe
(New York: Macmillan, 2002), p. 181.

198
most of them slim
: Krebs, “Truman Capote Is Dead at 59.”

198
One's eventual reputation
: McGrath, “Norman Mailer, Towering Writer.”

198
two sides to Norman Mailer
: Mary V. Dearborn,
Mailer: A Biography
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001), p. 408.

21: FREAK POWER

199
I do not advocate
: Anita Thompson, ed.,
Ancient Gonzo Wisdom : Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson
(Boston: Da Capo Press, 2009), p. 321; this is often quoted as “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me,” which may or may not have been the words he used in a speech at Stanford—no one seems to know for sure.

200
to hell with facts
: Ben Agger,
The Sixties at 40
(Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2009), p. 262.

200
Hunter identified with F. Scott Fitzgerald
:
Gonzo
:
The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
. Dir. Alex Gibney. Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2008. DVD.

200
a nation of frightened dullards
: Hunter S. Thompson,
Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
(New York: Random House, 1999), p. 251.

201
great writer
: Beef Torrey and Kevin Simonson, eds.,
Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008), p. 269.

201
A bird flies
: Thompson, ed.,
Ancient Gonzo Wisdom
, p. 61.

201
two bags of grass
: Hunter S. Thompson,
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(New York: Random House, 1971), p. 4.

202
I unfortunately proved
:
Breakfast with Hunter
, directed by Wayne Ewing (HunterThompsonFilms.com, 2003), DVD.

202
In today's culture
:
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride
, directed by Tom Thurman (Starz/Anchor Bay, 2007), DVD.

202
I wasn't trying to be an outlaw
: Thompson, ed.,
Ancient Gonzo Wisdom
, p. 456.

202
The guy whipped out this vial
: Corey Seymour and Jann S. Wenner,
Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson
(New York: Little, Brown, 2007), p. 211.

203
He'd come in the office
: Ibid., p. 141.

203
Thank Jesus for Norman
: Ibid., p. 433.

203
I was living for Hunter
: Ibid., p. 218.

204
some kind of sex palace
: Ibid., p. 223.

204
He enjoyed drugs, all kinds of them
: Ibid., p. 240.

204
prevent pitching this film
: Letter from Hunter S. Thompson to Johnny Depp, April 14, 1998; transcribed at http://www.johnnydepp-zone.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=11809 (retrieved July 2, 2012).

205
I'm really in the way
:
Fear and Loathing: On the Road to Hollywood
, directed by Nigel Finch (BBC, 1980), Videocassette.

205
And so we beat on
: Seymour and Wenner,
Gonzo
, p. 272.

205
a sweet family moment
:
Gonzo
:
The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
.

205
17 years past 50
: William McKeen,
Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), p. 351.

205
The door was open
: Seymour and Wenner,
Gonzo
, p. 67.

22: THE WORKSHOP

207
I never wrote so much
: Dardis,
The Thirsty Muse
, p. 44.

207
With no other privilege
: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Henry Nelson Coleridge, eds.,
Biographia Literaria; or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions
, Vol. 1 (New York: George P. Putnam, 1848), p. 324.

207
There's a question in my mind
: Allen Hibbard,
Conversations With William S. Burroughs
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), p. 72.

208
the days when a writer
: Olsen and Schaeffer,
We Wanted to Be Writers
, p. 75.

208
facing the delicious prospect
: Ibid., p. 91.

208
We go to workshops for community
: Ibid., p. 99.

209
family had essentially washed
: Ibid., p. 169.

209
I had John Cheever my second year
: Ibid.

210
A student in your course
: Letter from University of Iowa staff to John Cheever, dated November 27, 1973, http://www.writinguniversity.org/author/john-cheever (retrieved July 2, 2012).

210
Writing for
Travel and Leisure
magazine
:
Travel & Leisure
4, no. 9 (September 1974): 32–33, 50.

210
tended to be men of a certain age
: Olsen and Schaeffer,
We Wanted to Be Writers
, p. 186.

211
My name is John Cheever
: Blake Bailey,
Cheever: A Life
(New York: Random House, 2010), p. 4.

211
the most terrible, glum place
: Gerald Clarke,
Capote: A Biography
(New York: Ballantine, 1989), p. 504.

211
I can't convince myself
: William L. Stull and Maureen Patricia Carroll, eds.,
Remembering Ray
(New York: Capra Press, 1993), p. 91.