intimations, instincts you���ve developed that give you a wonderful
sense of when someone is having a sincere religious experience
and when they are having a false one. With writers, if you know
how to read them, and it may take being a writer for 50 years,
then you see through the writing to where they know a lot and
where they don���t. And that inspires your own writing, illumines
it.
One reason I was able to write the biography of Picasso 30 years
later is because of all the books written in between that I could
read and study and get a great deal out of. Not only good books,
but ones where I could say I think I understand Picasso better
than they do. Of course there is a tremendous amount of bad
writing about Picasso by some of the most established writers
about him ��� they love being academics about his work, and that���s
not the way to go to Picasso.
CB: You make clear that for Picasso, creation itself is a violent
act. When you speak about dullness in the imagination of NASA,
sometimes I think your idea of a good party is to invite the enemies
of your friends.
NM: No, only certain enemies.
CB: I���m teasing.
NM: Norris, my wife, thinks my idea of a good party is when I
do all the talking.
CB: You���ve found a woman equal to you in terms of her
centeredness. Even though you���ve been married six times, you���ve
HYLAND
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