When we test out our own insights on how other people might feel, the testing ground is ourselves. Our views on anything from politics to landscape a… - Hortense Calisher

At their best they’re our moral health—and our hope.

I don’t think artists can compete—except as to money and prizes, and, of course, status. Which may be temporary. But not on the page. Or the canvas or the stone. Or the musical score. All you can hope to be is worthy of the company you respect.

(What’s the sensation of writing?) HC: A sense of power and surprise when it’s going well. But always obsessive hope, as you pace an almost familiar terrain. (Surprise at what?) HC: At what can happen under your hand. When the whole becomes greater than the parts. But the real surprise is afterward. When I see that the book has made its own rules. Each one in the end makes its own form.