"I disavow any essential connection between my life and whatever I write. I think it’s a morbid..."

“I disavow any essential connection between my life and whatever I write. I think it’s a morbid and inappropriate area of concern, though natural enough—a lot of morbid concerns are natural. But the work, the words on the paper, must stand apart from our living presences; we sit down at the desk and become nothing but the excuse for these husks we cast off.”

- John Updike