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You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. Compassion is all to the good, but vindict… - Nelson Algren
" "You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. Compassion is all to the good, but vindictiveness is the verity Faulkner forgot: the organic force in every creative effort, from the poetry of Villon to the Brinks Express Robbery, that gives shape and color to all our dreams. [...] A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. The strong-armer isn't out merely to turn a fast buck any more than the poet is out solely to see his name on the cover of a book, whatever satisfaction that event may afford him. What both need most deeply is to get even. And, of course, neither will.
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About Nelson Algren
(March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. Best known for two of his novels, The Man with the Golden Arm (1949, , adapted into ) and A Walk on the Wild Side (1956, adapted into ), Algren also wrote short stories collected in The Neon Wilderness (1947), and the book-length essays Chicago: City on the Make (1951) and Nonconformity (1953/1996).
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Nelson Ahlgren Abraham
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But blow wise to this, buddy, blow wise to this: Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. Never let nobody talk you into shaking another man's jolt. And never you cop another man's plea. I've tried 'em all and I know. They don't work. / Life is hard by the yard, son. But you don't have to do it by the yard. By the inch it's a cinch. And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.
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