William Faulkner: "There is enough social life in the evening." (Image by Carl van Vechten.)

William Faulkner was better with a pen than a microphone. When he sat down for an interview with the Paris Review in 1956, Faulkner warned his interlocutor that he wasn’t partial to Q&As. “The reason I don’t like interviews,” he said, “is that I seem to react violently to personal questions.” But Faulkner did open up about what he thought was the finest job he ever had. An excerpt:

“Paris Review: Then what is the best environment for a writer?

William Faulkner: Art is not concerned with environment either; it doesn’t care where it is. If you mean me, the best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion, it’s the perfect milieu for a writer to work in. It gives him a perfect economic freedom; he’s free of fear and hunger; he has a roof over his head and nothing whatever to do except keep a few simple accounts and to go once very month and pay off the local police. The place is quiet during the morning, which is the best time of the day to work. There is enough social life in the evening, if he wishes to participate, to keep him from being bored; it gives him a certain standing in society; he has nothing to do because the madam keeps the books; all the inmates of the house are females and would defer to him and call him ‘sir.’ All the bootleggers in the neighborhood would call him ‘sir.’ And he could call the police by their first names.”