PARTISAN REVIEW
I don't doubt that it is hard to be at the same time both artist
and man of action, because
art,
in any field, involves a kind of ob–
session, in order to distill the whole world into the work of art, while
action implies the distillation of the world into the action itself. The
two forms of distillation are different, but they can be successive.
One of my characters remarks that he wants above all else: "to
translate the widest possible experience into consciousness." This
formula remains valid-at least for me.
Paris, 1948
438
