Wired Mesh

Readings: Regrets

"You would think Saul [Bellow] would be in a stupor of self-satisfaction because his work was so celebrated. He didn't say it till quite close to the end when a friend came in, who was almost the same age, and asked, ' Well, what have you got to say for yourself, Bellow?' And Saul, from his hospitalic bed in his own house, said, 'I've been thinking. Now which is it? Is it: there goes a man or there goes a jerk?' And his friend, Karl, said, 'There goes a man.' And Saul said, 'OK. I'll take your word for it.'"

—Martin Amis, "The Voice of Experience," The Times