You don’t know what it’s like to have wanted something your entire life and never be good enough.

Robert Alan Clayton - Do Not Enter, Moapa, Nevada   (source)

He wore the standard Savoy uniform of dark trousers, white shirt and an elegant maroon waistcoat emblazoned with the hotel’s insignia. He was of average height and regular build, and his skin was smooth, as if it rarely knew the pull of a razor. He had full red lips, strong eyebrows and a mop of unruly dark hair that looked as if it would fight with all the resolve of three hundred Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae against any comb that attempted to tame it. He recalled to me Caravaggio’s portrait of the young Minniti, a painting I had always admired. Above all else, however, there was that unmistakable spark of youth about him, a powerful blend of vitality and impulsive sexuality, and I wondered how he spent his time when he was not on duty at the Savoy. I believed him to be good and decent and kind. And all this despite the fact that we had not, as yet, exchanged a single word. (p. 12*)

Events moved quickly after that. Perhaps if I had not won The Prize, the newspapers would not have taken as much interest in me but of course I had acquired some small measure of celebrity that was pure oxygen to the fire of publicity that followed. (p 71*)

Just say what you have to say, I had told him, and then move on and say something else. Sometimes, after all, the sky is just blue. (p. 73*)

What right had I, I asked myself, to feel aggrieved over Maurice’s actions? All he had done was take my memories and turn them into a bestseller that would be forgotten in time. How could I possibly compare his crimes to my own?
(p. 74*)

Would there be no end to publishing? he wondered. Perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone just stopped writing for a couple of years and allowed readers to catch up. (p. 78*)

‘It’s just that, when you’re a young writer, it can be hard for one to be taken seriously.’
‘It’s the same for old writers,’ said Gore with a shrug. ‘They think I’ve already said everything I have to say because I’m too old. If only we could all remain middle-aged for ever, then they would carve our every sentence into stone.’ (p. 85*)

There can be no discussion of morality when it comes to art. A writer must tell the story that captures his soul. (p. 91*)

[...] as far as I can tell, half the world’s novelists have chimed in with their opinions, which has provided each one with their intended few minutes of publicity. How competitive everyone is in expressing their outrage! (pp. 91-92*)

‘I think Maurice is whatever he needs to be, whenever he needs to be it. He’s an operator, that’s for sure. And I don’t much like him, Gore, if I’m honest. Sometimes I think I might hate him. He’s rude and unkind, utterly self-centred, and treats me like a dog. But I can’t seem to break away from him. When we’re together, I’m in torment, but when we’re apart he’s all that I can think about. I wonder who he’s with and what he’s doing and whether he’s thinking of me at all. It wasn’t like that when we met, of course. I had the upper hand then. I’m … well, I am what I am.’ (p. 98*)

‘All right. But you know what they say in Italy, yes? Quando dio vuole castigarci, ci manda quello che desideriamo.’
‘Which means?’
‘When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.’ (p. 104*)

When we walked in, I noticed how the students – my students – looked at you with more reverence than they’d ever shown towards me. I don’t think I’m being paranoid, Maurice, when I say that it was as if they believed that, finally, a real writer had come to speak to them, simply because you happened to have a penis. Even the girls, who all liked to pretend that they were such staunch feminists, looked at you with more respect than they ever did me. Especially the girls, actually. (p. 127*)

‘Well, I try to keep up,’ she replied. ‘I can’t bear ageing novelists who refuse to bother with the young. Most of them seem to think that they’re the only ones worth reading, you see, and that literature as we know it will come to an end when they publish their final book. Well, the men do, certainly. Can you imagine a seventy-five-year-old white Englishman with twenty novels under his belt reading a debut by a twenty-eight-year-old black girl of Caribbean descent? It would never happen. They’d much rather tell the world that they’re re-reading all of Henry James in chronological order and finding him a little smug.’ (p. 133*)

‘I just need to be a writer, that’s all. It’s all I’ve ever needed to be. That and a father. And it’s not as if you’ve been much use to me on that score, is it?’
‘Don’t bring that up,’ I said quickly, feeling a twinge inside myself at what I knew that you didn’t. ‘That’s got nothing to do with any of this.’
‘It’s got everything to do with it,’ you said. ‘You can’t give me a child so surely you can make up for that by giving me a book. I need it, don’t you see that? Without a writing career, what am I, after all? Please, Edith,’ you said, your tone changing slightly now, becoming less aggressive and more beseeching. ‘If you tell anyone, you’ll ruin me. There’ll be no coming back from it. My reputation will be completely destroyed.’ (p. 169*)

One of the interns could deal with Henrietta. That’s what I pay them for, after all, he thought, ignoring the fact that he didn’t actually pay them anything. They worked for free but with the unassailable conviction that a couple of months spent on a desk at Storī would add a solid detail to their résumés. (pp. 185-186*)

‘We got lucky this time, there’s no lawsuit, but remember, this is America. People here will sue you just for looking at them the wrong way in the street and, if they find out that we have a little money, then they’ll try to find a way to take it off us.’ (p. 196*)

He took the book down and moved directly to the index at the back, running his finger down the names. To be included ran the risk of something negative being said but to be ignored would be wounding. (p. 204*)

It was my belief that the boy knew he was essentially talentless, nothing more than a good-looking hack, and that only charm and sycophancy could keep him in the game. It did, too, for a time. (p. 205*)

I had long since come to understand, however, that I was different from other men in that I had no particular desire for the bodies of others and that whatever instinct guided people towards the bedroom was somehow lost on me. Whether or not this has been a blessing or a curse is hard to know but I suspect it’s the former. I’ve seen so many people’s lives destroyed by failed love affairs or unrequited passions that I’ve always felt rather fortunate to remain essentially disinterested. Why would anyone want to be part of such calamitous drama, after all? (p. 217*)

‘Many modern novels are plotless,’ I told him, not entirely sure as I said this that it was actually the case. ‘In fact, I was in a bookshop recently where I saw a shelf-talker that referred to “Plotless Fiction”.’
‘That sort of thing doesn’t interest me,’ he said.
‘You don’t like experimentation?’
‘I suppose I feel that those books don’t age very well,’ he said, considering it. ‘What feels quirky or unusual today can often seem ridiculous, even embarrassing, a few years later. Endless streams of consciousness. Pages and pages of nonsense designed to fool people into thinking you’re some sort of genius because you don’t put words in their proper order or spell them correctly. It’s just not for me. I don’t mind admitting that I like traditional novel-writing. You know, with a plot. And characters. And good writing.’ (pp. 223-224*)

I’d only been at their table a few minutes but had already managed to insult them both and make them each feel like shit, so I was beginning to feel that my work there was done. (p. 248*)

‘Look, Theo. I’m a writer. And what’s the most irritating question that a writer can be asked?’
‘I don’t know. Do you write by hand or on a computer?’
‘No, it’s Where do you get your ideas? And the answer is that no one knows where they come from and nobody should know. They evolve in thin air, they float down from some mysterious heaven and we reach out to grab one, to grasp it in our imagination, and to make it our own. (p. 263*)

If I helped him, my career would be over, and I could not – I would not – allow that to happen. I had worked far too long and far too hard to let it go. I was a writer, for fuck’s sake. I was born to be a writer. No one would ever take that away from me.
[...] ‘You don’t know what it’s like to have wanted something your entire life and never be good enough.’ (pp. 269-270*)

* as indicated on my e-book reader

John Boyne - A Ladder to the Sky (Doubleday, 2018)