Respect Other Writers’ Feelings

INTERVIEWER: Your only formal studies in fiction were as a fellow in Wallace Stegner’s writing program at Stanford. What did you learn from Stegner and also from Malcolm Cowley?

KEN KESEY: The greatest thing Cowley taught me was to respect other writers’ feelings. If writing is going to have any effect on people morally, it ought to affect the writer morally. It is important to support everyone who tries to write because their victories are your victories. So I have never really felt that bitter cattiness writers feel toward their peers.

Paris Review Interview