‘Every writer is different,’ I said. ‘But they don’t steal, exactly. They absorb. It’s such a strange profession, really, living in a sort of twilight between the world they belong to and the world they create. On the one hand, they’re monstrous egotists. Self-confidence, self-examination, self-hatred even … but it’s all about self. All those hours on their own! And yet at the same time, they’re genuinely altruistic. All they want to do is please other people. I’ve often thought it must demand a sort of deficiency to be a writer. There’s something missing in your life so you fill it with
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