Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

by Mason Currey

  4. “Sooner or later”: V. S. Pritchett, “Gibbon and the Home Guard,” in Complete Collected Essays (New York: Random House, 1991), 4.

  5. “time is short”: Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer, November 1, 1912, in Letters to Felice, ed. Erich Heller and Jürgen Born, trans. James Stern and Elisabeth Duckworth (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), 21–2.

  6. W. H. Auden: Humphrey Carpenter, W. H. Auden: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981); Richard Davenport-Hines, Auden (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995); Stephen Spender, ed., W. H. Auden: A Tribute (New York: Macmillan, 1975).

  7. “Routine, in an”: Quoted in Davenport-Hines, 298.

  8. “He checks his”: Quoted in Carpenter, 391.

  9. “A modern stoic”: Quoted in Davenport-Hines, 298.

  10. “Only the ‘Hitlers’ ”: Quoted in Spender, 173.

  11. “the chemical life”: Quoted in Carpenter, 265.

  12. “labor-saving devices”: Quoted in Davenport-Hines, 186.

  13. Francis Bacon: Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996).

  14. “essentially a creature”: Ibid., 101.

  15. “I often like”: Quoted ibid., 161.

  16. Simone de Beauvoir: Interview with Bernard Frechtman and Madeleine Gobeil, “The Art of Fiction No. 35: Simone de Beauvoir,” Paris Review, Spring–Summer 1965, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4444/the-art-of-fiction-no-35-simone-de-beauvoir; Deirdre Bair, Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography (New York: Touchstone, 1990); Louis Menand, “Stand By Your Man,” New Yorker, September 26, 2005, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/09/26/050926crbo_books.

  17. “I’m always in”: Interview with Frechtman and Gobeil.

  18. Generally, Beauvoir worked: Bair, 359–60.

  19. “On the first”: Quoted ibid., 444.

  20. Thomas Wolfe: David Herbert Donald, Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987).

  21. “amazing speed”: Quoted ibid., 237.

  22. “penis remained limp”: Quoted ibid.

  23. “male configurations”: Quoted ibid.

  24. “priming himself with”: Ibid., 246.

  25. Patricia Highsmith: Andrew Wilson, Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith (London: Bloomsbury, 2003).

  26. “There is no”: Quoted ibid., 324.

  27. like rats have: Ibid., 8.

  28. “Her favourite technique”: Ibid., 123.

  29. “not to perk”: Ibid., 141.

  30. “she only ever”: Quoted ibid., 323.

  31. “they give me”: Quoted ibid., 135.

  32. Federico Fellini: Hollis Alpert, Fellini: A Life (1986; repr. New York: Paragon House, 1988); Bert Cardullo, ed., Federico Fellini: Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006).

  33. “I’m up at six”: Quoted in Alpert, 264.

  34. “A writer can”: Interview with Gideon Bachmann, Film Book I, ed. Robert Hughes (New York: Grove, 1959), in Cardullo, 16.

  35. Ingmar Bergman: Raphael Shargel, ed., Ingmar Bergman: Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007); Michiko Kakutani, “Ingmar Bergman: Summing Up a Life in Film,” New York Times Magazine, June 6, 1983, http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/06/magazine/26kaku.html.

  36. “Do you know”: Interview with Cynthia Grenier, Playboy, June 1964, in Shargel, 38.

  37. “He constantly eats”: Interview with Richard Meryman, “I Live at the Edge of a Very Strange Country,” Life, October 15, 1971, in Shargel, 107.

  38. “I never use”: Ibid., 103.

  39. “I have been”: Quoted in Kakutani.

  40. Morton Feldman: Chris Villars, ed. and trans., Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964–1987 (London: Hyphen, 2006); B. H. Friedman, ed., Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman (Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000).

  41. “I live here”: Interview with Martine Cadieu in Villars, 39.

  42. “the most important”: Morton Feldman, “Darmstadt Lecture,” July 26, 1984, in Villars, 204.

  43. “My concern at times”: Morton Feldman, “The Anxiety of Art,” Art in America, September/October 1973, in Friedman, 30.

  44. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Emily Anderson, trans. and ed., The Letters of Mozart and His Family, 3rd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985); Peter Gay, Mozart (New York: Viking Penguin, 1999).

  45. “My hair is always”: Mozart to his sister, February 17, 1782, in Anderson, 797.

  46. “Altogether I have”: Mozart to his father, December 28, 1782, in Anderson, 833.

  47. “It is impossible”: Leopold Mozart to his daughter, March 12, 1785, in Anderson, 888.

  48. Ludwig van Beethoven: Anton Felix Schindler, Beethoven As I Knew Him, ed. Donald W. MacArdle, trans. Constance S. Jolly (1860; repr. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1996); Maynard Solomon, Beethoven, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998).

  49. “Washing and bathing”: Schindler, 386.

  50. Søren Kierkegaard: Joakim Garff, Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).

  51. “at least fifty”: Quoted ibid., 290.

  52. “Kierkegaard had”: Ibid., 291.

  53. Voltaire: Roger Pearson, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom (New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2005); Haydn Mason, Voltaire: A Biography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).

  54. recorded Voltaire’s routine: Pearson, 355.

  55. Wagnière estimated that: Mason, 134.

  56. “I love the cell”: Quoted ibid.

  57. Benjamin Franklin: Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and Other Writings, ed. Peter Shaw (New York: Bantam Books, 1982); H. W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, 2nd ed. (New York: Anchor Books, 2002).

  58. “moral perfection”: Franklin, 75.

  59. “Let all your things”: Ibid., 76.

  60. “I have found it”: Quoted in Brands, 411.

  61. Anthony Trollope: Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography (1883; repr. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922); Pamela Neville-Sington, Fanny Trollope: The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman (New York: Viking, 1997).

  62. “It was my practice”: Trollope, 236–7.

  63. mother, Francis Trollope: Neville-Sington, 255.

  64. Jane Austen: Park Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1987); James Edward Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen (1926; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967); Carol Shields, Jane Austen (New York: Viking Penguin, 2001).

  65. “subject to all”: Austen-Leigh, 102.

  66. Austen rose early: Honan, 264.

  67. “Composition seems to”: Quoted in Shields, 123.

  68. Frédéric Chopin: Jim Samson, Chopin (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996); Frederick Niecks, Frederick Chopin As a Man and Musician, vol. 2 (1888; repr. Neptune City, NJ: Paganiniana, 1980).

  69. “His creation was”: Quoted in Niecks, 132.

  70. “I dared not”: Ibid.

  71. Gustave Flaubert: Francis Steegmuller, Flaubert and Madame Bovary: A Double Portrait (1939; repr. New York: New York Review of Books, 2005); Frederick Brown, Flaubert: A Biography (New York: Little, Brown, 2006); Henry Troyat, Flaubert, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Viking, 1992).

  72. already looking middle-aged: Steegmuller, 216.

  73. “Last night I began”: Quoted in Troyat, 111.

  74. Flaubert woke at 10:00: Brown, 293, and Steegmuller, 239–41.

  75. “Sometimes I don’t”: Quoted in Troyat, 117.

  76. “Bovary is not”: Quoted ibid., 126.

  77. Together they would: Steegmuller, 241.

  78. “After all”: Quoted in Troyat, 173.

  79. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Julia Frey, Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life (New York: Viking, 1994); Jad Adams, Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004).

  80. One of his inventions: Adams, 132.

  81. “a peacock’s tail”
: Quoted ibid.

  82. “I expect to burn”: Quoted in Frey, 242.

  83. Thomas Mann: Anthony Heilbut, Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (1995; repr. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997); Ronald Hayman, Thomas Mann: A Biography (New York: Scribner, 1995).

  84. “Every passage becomes”: Quoted in Heilbut, 207.

  85. “clench the teeth”: Quoted ibid.

  86. Karl Marx: Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Francis Wheen, Karl Marx: A Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000); Michael Evans, Karl Marx (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1975); Werner Blumenberg, Karl Marx: An Illustrated Biography, trans. Douglas Scott (1972; repr. London: Verso, 1998).

  87. “His mode of living”: Berlin, 143.

  88. He never had: Evans, 32.

  89. “I must pursue”: Quoted ibid.

  90. Marx relied on: Wheen, 160.

  91. “I don’t suppose”: Quoted ibid., 234.

  92. “could neither sit”: Blumenberg, 100.

  93. “You know that”: Quoted in Evans, 33.

  94. Sigmund Freud: Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988; repr. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998); Martin Freud, Sigmund Freud: Man and Father (New York: Vanguard Press, 1958); Louis Breger, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision (New York: Wiley, 2000).

  95. “I cannot imagine”: Quoted in Gay, 157.

  96. “My father marched”: Freud, 27.

  97. “My boy, smoking”: Quoted in Gay, 170.

  98. Carl Jung: Ronald Hayman, A Life of Jung (1999; repr. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001); Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffé, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, rev. ed. (1961; repr. New York: Vintage Books, 1989).

  99. “If a man”: Quoted in Hayman, 250.

  100. “I’ve realized that”: Quoted ibid., 310.

  101. “spent a long time”: Ibid., 251.

  102. “At Bollingen I”: Jung, 225–6.

  103. Gustav Mahler: Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters, ed. Donald Mitchell, trans. Basil Creighton (1946; repr. New York: Viking Press, 1969); Henry-Louis De La Grange, Gustav Mahler, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

  104. “was stripped of”: Mahler, 47.

  105. “he nearly always”: Ibid., 45.

  106. “Its purpose was”: Ibid., 46.

  107. “an invalid’s diet”: Ibid.

  108. “If his inspiration”: Ibid., 47.

  109. “There’s such a”: Quoted in De La Grange, 536.

  110. “You know that”: Quoted ibid., 534.

  111. Richard Strauss: Norman Del Mar, Richard Strauss: A Critical Commentary on His Life and Works, vol. 1 (1962; repr. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1978).

  112. “My day’s work”: Quoted ibid., 91.

  113. Henri Matisse: Interview with Francis Carco, “Conversations with Matisse,” Die Kunst-Zeitung, August 8, 1943, trans. and repr. in Matisse on Art, Jack D. Flam (1973; repr. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978), 82–90.

  114. “Basically, I enjoy”: Quoted ibid., 85.

  115. “Do you understand”: Quoted ibid.

  116. Joan Miró: Lluis Permanyer, Miró: The Life of a Passion, trans. Paul Martin (Barcelona: Edicions de 1984, 2003).

  117. “[A]t six o’clock”: Ibid., 105.

  118. “Merde! I absolutely”: Quoted ibid., 107.

  119. Gertrude Stein: Janet Flanner, James Thurber, and Harold Ross, “Tender Buttons,” The Talk of the Town, New Yorker, October, 13, 1934, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1934/10/13/1934_10_13_022_TNY_CARDS_000238137; Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography (1937; repr. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 1993); Janet Malcolm, Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).

  120. “managed the practical”: Malcolm., 28.

  121. “Miss Stein gets up”: Flanner et al.

  122. “If you write”: Stein, 70.

  123. “I never go”: Ibid., 134.

  124. Ernest Hemingway: Interview with George Plimpton, “The Art of Fiction No. 21: Ernest Hemingway,” Paris Review, 1958, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4825/the-art-of-fiction-no-21-ernest-hemingway; Gregory H. Hemingway, M.D., Papa: A Personal Memoir (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976).

  125. “My father would”: Hemingway, 49.

  126. “When I am”: Interview with Plimpton.

  127. “I don’t think”: Ibid.

  128. “so as not to”: Ibid.

  129. “the awful responsibility”: Quoted in Hemingway, 49.

  130. Henry Miller: Frank L. Kersnowski and Alice Hughes, eds., Conversations with Henry Miller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994).

  131. “I don’t believe”: Quoted in Audrey June Booth, “An Interview with Henry Miller,” 1962, in ibid., 41–2.

  132. “I know that”: Quoted in Lionel Olay, “Meeting with Henry,” Cavalier, July 1963, in Kersnowski and Hughes, 70.

  133. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Matthew J. Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 2nd rev. ed. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002); Jeffrey Meyers, Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994).

  134. “Stories are best”: Quoted in Bruccoli, 109.

  135. “It has become”: Quoted ibid., 341.

  136. William Faulkner: Jay Parini, One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner (New York: HarperCollins, 2004); Stephen B. Oates, William Faulkner: The Man and the Artist (New York: Harper and Row, 1987); David Minter, William Faulkner: His Life and Work (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980).

  137. “always wrote when”: Quoted in Parini, 217.

  138. “I write when”: Quoted in Oates, 96.

  139. Arthur Miller: Interview with Christopher Bigby, “The Art of Theater No. 2, Part 2: Arthur Miller,” Paris Review, Fall 1999, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/895/the-art-of-theater-no-2-part-2-arthur-miller.

  140. Benjamin Britten: Christopher Headington, Britten (London: Omnibus Press, 1996); Alan Blyth, Remembering Britten (London: Hutchinson, 1981).

  141. “That isn’t the way”: Quoted in Headington, 87–8.

  142. “He could make”: Quoted in Blyth, 22.

  143. “Functioning as a”: Quoted ibid., 132.

  144. Ann Beattie: Dawn Trouard, ed., Conversations with Ann Beattie (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007).

  145. “I really think”: Interview with Fred Sokol, Connecticut Quarterly 2, Summer 1980, in ibid., 24.

  146. “I really don’t”: Ibid., 25.

  147. “I certainly am”: Margaria Fichtner, “Author Ann Beattie Lives in the Sunshine, but Writes in, and from, the Dark,” Miami Herald, May 17, 1998, in Trouard, 171.

  148. Günter Grass: Interview with Elizabeth Gaffney, “The Art of Fiction No. 124: Günter Grass,” Paris Review, Summer 1991, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2191/the-art-of-fiction-no-124-gunter-grass.

  149. Tom Stoppard: Ira Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

  150. “frightened enough to”: Quoted ibid., 93.

  151. “An inveterate”: Ibid., 436.

  152. “intellectual inefficiency”: Quoted ibid., 114.

  153. “I never work”: Quoted ibid., 484.

  154. Haruki Murakami: Interview with John Wray, “The Art of Fiction No. 182: Haruki Murakami,” Paris Review, Summer 2004, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2/the-art-of-fiction-no-182-haruki-murakami; Haruki Murakami, “The Running Novelist,” New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2008, 75.

  155. “I keep to”: Interview with Wray.

  156. “Physical strength is”: Ibid.

  157. “People are offended”: Murakami, 75.

  158. Toni Morrison: Interview with Claudia Brodsky Lacour and Elissa Schappell, “The Art of Fiction No. 134: Toni Morrison,” Paris Review, Fall 1993, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison; Danille Taylor-Guthrie, ed., Conversations with Toni Morrison
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004).

  159. “I am not able”: Interview with Lacour and Schappell.

  160. “It does seem”: Interview with Mel Watkins, “Talk with Toni Morrison,” New York Times Book Review, September 11, 1977, in Taylor-Guthrie, 43.

  161. “I am not very”: Interview with Lacour and Schappell.

  162. “watch the light”: Ibid.

  163. Joyce Carol Oates: Lee Milazzo, ed., Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989).

  164. “I write and”: Interview with Leif Sjoberg, “An Interview with Joyce Carol Oates,” Contemporary Literature, Summer 1982, in ibid., 105.

  165. “Getting the first”: Interview with Robert Compton, “Joyce Carol Oates Keeps Punching,” Dallas Morning News, November 17, 1987, in Milazzo, 166.

  166. Chuck Close: Interview with author, August 10, 2010.

  167. Francine Prose: E-mail message to author’s agent, Megan Thompson, April 20, 2009.

  168. John Adams: Interview with author, May 20, 2010.

  169. Steve Reich: Interview with author, January 25, 2010.

  170. Nicholson Baker: Interview with author, August 6, 2010.

  171. B. F. Skinner: B. F. Skinner, “My Day,” August 9, 1963, B. F. Skinner Basement Archives; Daniel W. Bjork, B. F. Skinner: A Life (New York: Basic Books, 1993).

  172. “I rise sometime”: Skinner, “My Day.”

  173. By the time: Bjork, 217.

  174. Margaret Mead: Jane Howard, Margaret Mead: A Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984).

  175. “How dare they?”: Quoted ibid., 287.

  176. “Empty time stretches”: Quoted ibid., 393.

  177. Jonathan Edwards: George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

  178. “I think Christ”: Quoted ibid., 133.

  179. “For each insight”: Ibid., 136.

  180. Samuel Johnson: James Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Peter Martin, Samuel Johnson: A Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

  181. “generally went abroad”: Quoted in Boswell, 282.

  182. “His general mode”: Quoted ibid., 437.

  183. “My reigning sin”: Quoted in Martin, 458–9.

  184. “idleness is a”: Quoted in Boswell, 437.

  185. James Boswell: James Boswell, Boswell in Holland, 1763–1764, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (1928; repr. New York: McGraw Hill, 1952); James Boswell, Boswell’s London Journal, 1762–1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (New York: McGraw Hill, 1950).