QotD: Writing as a Career

Leftist writers raised in affluent circumstances — as I think even they would admit, in honest moments — suffer from heroic self-image as an occupational disease. And perhaps this is equally true of the conservatives as well. But when you come from the actual working class — when your father is someone who actually helps assemble buildings, as opposed to designing them — you can never, as a professional intellectual, shake the suspicion that you are going to get caught and sent back to [earn] a proper living. I think it's part of why relatively minor career crises have such a shattering effect on my nerves; as a columnist I've turned out to be much more of a cowardly beggar for editorial reassurance than I ever thought I'd be. It's because I see my career subconsciously, and always will, as the product of some inchoate power's inexplicable carelessness.

Colby Cosh "Who let him in?", ColbyCosh.com, 2005-01-19