From the very first, my countrymen have followed my literary career, now criticizing, now praising my work, but hardly ever letting a single word be buried in indifference.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Literature is my calling To hold up the mirror to my countrymen comes natural to me; and in the open field of invention I am not without hopes of giving them pleasure.
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
There is no question that at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about my country, that I worked far too hard and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate.
I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
I wrote some bad poetry that I published in North African journals, but even as I withdrew into this reading, I also led the life of a kind of young hooligan.
I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me.
I was praised in the U.S. and heavily, brutally criticized in France.
I have published so many books in so many years. I can't complain about any lack of attention. But I've never been placed as a Southern writer, which I really am. So I was happy finally to be published by someone in the South.
In the beginning, I tried to be a more cosmopolitan writer, but I realized that I was a country boy, and I had to deal with things I knew about and where I came from.
I haven't read a single word that a critic has written about me since 1994.