13 August 2008

Don DeLillo on the role of a writer

Responding to being called a 'bad citizen' by George Will in response to his novel Libra:

"I don't take it seriously, but being called a 'bad citizen' is a compliment to a novelist, at least to my mind. That's exactly what we ought to do. We ought to be bad citizens. We ought to, in a sense that we're writing against what power represents, and often what government represents, and what the corporation dictates, and what consumer consciousness has come to mean. In that sense, if we're bad citizens, we're doing our job.
-Don DeLillo

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