Bittman - flexitarian

treadmill desk

INTERVIEWER

But how does professionalism make a writer lose his verve and pugnacity?

MOORE

Money may have something to do with it, and being regarded as a pundit; Wallace Stevens was really very much annoyed at being cataloged, categorized, and compelled to be scientific about what he was doing—to give satisfaction, to answer the teachers. He wouldn’t do that. I think the same of William Carlos Williams. I think he wouldn’t make so much of the great American language if he were plausible; and tractable. That’s the beauty of it; he is willing to be reckless; if you can’t be that, what’s the point of the whole thing?