Another Buckley

Forty years of "Notes & Asides" from my favorite fortnightly National Review distilled into one profanely titled volume. Admittedly it's never been my favorite part of the magazine, but occasionally something really hits home.

Like this:

"Humility is not a virtue propitious to the artist. It is often pride, emulation, avarice, malice -- all the odious qualities -- which drive a man to complete, elaborate, refine, destroy, renew, his work until he has made something that gratifies his pride and envy and greed. And in doing so he enriches the world more than the generous and the good, though he may lose his own soul in the process. That is the paradox of artistic achievement."

--p. 143 (quoting Evelyn Waugh's 1961 book review in NR of Garry Wills's book on G.K. Chesterton, "Chesterton: Man and Mask"; published following a correspondence between Buckley and Waugh that was featured in Notes & Asides).