Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)
Legend says Alexander the Great always carried a treasured edition of Homer corrected by his tutor Aristotle, and that he put it under his pillow at night along with his sword. When Alexander found a golden casket studded with gems in the tent of Darius after he defeated the Persian king, he placed his edition of Homer inside and kept it there, whenever he wasn't reading it, for the rest of his life, frequently saying, "There is but one thing in life worthy of so precious a casket." (WLA 8).
Georges Simenon (1903-1989)
The Belgian-born novelist wrote hundreds of what he called "commercial" novels, among them his famous Inspector Maigret mysteries, but considered them inferior to his "pure" or "non-commercial" works. When working on these, which took him eleven days each to write, he spoke to no one, didn't take a phone call, lived "just like a monk." Before beginning he would cancel all appointments for eleven days and have a complete physical examination from his doctor. Once he started, working from the barest of outlines sketched on the back of a 7x10 envelope, he would become the main character in his story, driving that character to his limit. He once explained that this was why his "pure" novels were so short. After eleven days it was impossible to go on: "It's physical. I am too tired." (WLA 223).
Alfred Hitchcock (1889-1980)
Hitchcock had telephoned the prolific Belgian novelist Georges Simenon, who wrote his books at incredible speed, sometimes in as little as 10 days. Simenon's wife took the call. "I'm sorry," she said, "but Georges is writing and I can't disturb him."
"Let him finish his book," Hitchcock replied. "I'll hang on." (ALA 115).
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
In the 1880s Emerson, America's first lecturer known to receive a fee, got $5 for himself and oats for his horse as payment. After finishing a lecture, he had to argue whether the oats were part of the bargain. (ALA 63).
Emerson lent a Yankee neighbor his copy of Plato's Dialogues, which the man returned in a week or so. Did you enjoy reading the book?" Emerson asked him. "Yup," the neighbor said. "Liked it very much. That fellow Plato has got a lot of my ideas." (ALA 63).
Emerson: "I trust a good deal to the common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods." (ALA 64).
Tennessee (Thomas Lanier) Williams (1911-1983)
Asked why he had given up his psychoanalyst, Williams seriously replied, "He was meddling too much in my private life." (ALA 249).
After leaving the bathroom in Benjamin Sonnenberg's huge, ornate Gramercy Park mansion, Williams was heard to remark, "It looked so shabby when I took it out, I couldn't go." (ALA 249).
Edmund Wilson (1895-1972)
When asked if he typed, dictated or wrote out his work, Wilson liked to reply, "I think with my right hand." (ALA 251).
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
Pound grew increasingly silent in his last years; in a German documentary made of him he refused to speak a word. In 1965 he told his French publisher Dominique de Roux, "I did not enter into silence, silence captured me." (ALA 191).
Source: Hendrickson, Robert. American Literary Anecdotes. New York: Facts On File, 1990.