Philip Roth on retiring from writing...

When I decided to stop writing five years ago I did...sit down to reread the ...books..  My conclusion, after I'd finished, echoes the words spoken by an American boxing hero of mine, Joe Louis.... "I did the best I could with what I had." p. 379

All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable, or so I found it to be. ...Writing for me was a feat of self preservation. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.  ...happiness didn't matter to me and I had no compassion for myself....Maybe writing protected me against even worse menace. p. 381

I'd done my best work and anything more would be inferior. I was by this time no longer in possession of the mental vitality or the verbal energy or the physical fitness needed to mount and sustain a large creative attach...Every talent has its terms--its nature, its scope, its force; also its term, a tenure, a lifespan. .. Not everyone can be fruitful forever. p. 386

To commemorate my having been generously granted sufficient time and enough good health to have finished thirty-one books,...p. 398

from the Library of American volume, Why Write?

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