YouSaid · the spoken record

Alan Sillitoe

lines on the record

52

first

2009-01-25

most recent

2009-01-25

sittings or episodes

1

sources

podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “You know, it's very difficult to say because when I remember on one occasion in the 60s, I went to Russia under a Soviet journalist said to me why and for whom do you write? And I said, I write because I want to live or because I don't want to die. And he couldn't understand, but that was exactly what I felt. I didn't want to say Oh yes, I write because I want to give dignity to the so called proletariat and all that nonsense. I just wrote because I had to write, you see.”

   2009-01-25 · Desert Island Discs · Alan Sillitoe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Well I'd read so many life stories of writers who had cracked up after the first novel or died young, and I thought to myself well I don't want to do that I'm in it for life. Of course when I say that it doesn't mean that you can't live of course you can live you have to live, you know because all sorts of things happen to you but generally speaking what you should do is watch out that you don't get overwhelmed by life. I knew I had a lot more in me to fuel that work, so that was all right.”

   2009-01-25 · Desert Island Discs · Alan Sillitoe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source