Cervantes was asleep when he wrote Don Quixote.
Joyce slept during the Wandering Rocks section of
Ulysses.
Homer nodded and occasionally slept during the greater
part of the Iliad; he was awake however when he
wrote the Odyssey.
Proust snored his way through The Captive, as have
legions of his readers after him.
Melville was asleep at the wheel for much of Moby Dick.
Fitzgerald slept through Tender Is the Night, which is
perhaps not so surprising,
but the fact that Mann slumbered on the very slopes of
The Magic Mountain is quite extraordinary-that he
wrote it, even more so.
Kafka, of course, never slept, even while not writing or
on bank holidays.
No one knows too much about George Eliot’s writing
habits – my guess is she would sleep a few minutes,
again.
Lew Wallace’s forty winks came, incredibly, during the
chariot race in Ben Hur.
Emily Dickinson slept on her cold, narrow bed in
Amherst.
When she awoke there would be a new poem
inscribed by Jack Frost on the windowpane;
outside, glass foliage chimed.
Good old Walt snored as he wrote and, like so many
of us, insisted he didn’t.
Maugham snored on the Riviera.
Agatha Christie slept daintily, as a woman sleeps,
which is why her novels are like tea sandwiches –
artistic, for the most part.
I sleep when I cannot avoid it; my writing and
sleeping are constantly improving.
I have other things to say, but shall not detain you
much.
Never go out in a boat with an author-they cannot
tell when they are over water.
Birds make poor role-models.
A philosopher should be shown the door, but don’t,
under any circumstances, try it.
Slaves make good servants.
Brushing the teeth may not always improve the
appearance.
Store clean rags in old pillow cases.
Feed a dog only when he barks.
Flush tea leaves down the toilet, coffee grounds
down the sink.
Beware of anonymous letters -you may have written
them, in a wordless implosion of sleep.
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