Anita Berber and Sebastian Droste
Scott: I did not care whether you were a writer or not if you were any good. It is a struggle. It has been a struggle to me. It is self-evident to me that nobody cares about anything. It is a perfectly lonely struggle that I am making against other writers who are finely gifted and talented. You are a third-rate writer and a third-rate ballet dancer. … If you want to write modest things you may be able to turn out one collection of short stories. For the rest, you are compared to me is just like comparing—well, there is just not any comparison. I am a professional writer with a huge following. I am the highest paid short story writer in the world. I have at various times dominated—
Zelda: It seems to me you are making a rather violent attack on a third-rate talent, then. Why in the hell you are so jealous, I don’t know. If I thought that about anybody I would not care what they wrote.
Scott: Because you are broaching at all times on my material just as if a good artist came into a room and found something drawn on the canvas by some mischievous little boy.
Zelda: Well, what do you want me to be?
E.A. Poe
