"I had an idea for some time back that I should like to do an article on The Moral Status of the Writer, or more frivolously, The Hell with Posterity I Want Mine Now. Not a frivolous article really it seems to me that all this yapping about writers selling themselves to Hollywood or the slicks or some transient propaganda idea, instead of writing sincerely from the heart about what they see around them - the people who make this kind of complaint, and that includes practically every critic who takes himself seriously, overlooks the point (I don't see how they can, but they do) that no writer in any age got a blank check. He always had to accept some conditions imposed from without, respect certain taboos, try to please certain people. It might have been the Church, or a rich patron, or a generally accepted standard of elegance, or the commercial wisdom of a publisher or editor, or perhaps even a set of political theories." - Raymond Chandler (from a 1947 letter)
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