James Salter, I read recently, is not just a writer’s writer. He is a writer’s writer’s writer.

I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I like the sound of it. And I agree with it. Here’s why:

I had three lives, one during the day, one at night, and the
last in a drawer in my room in a small book of notes. There were wonderful things in that book, things that I am
unable to write or even imagine again. That they were wonderful was not my
doing—I merely took the trouble to put them down.    

The poets, writers, the sages and voices of their time, they
are a chorus, the anthem they share is the same: the great and small are
joined, the beautiful lives, the other dies, and all is foolish except honor,
love, and what little is known by the heart.

Writing is filled with uncertainty and much of what one does
turns out bad, but this time, very early there was a startling glimpse, like
that of a body beneath the water, pale, terrifying, the glimpse that says: it
is there.

 In the darkness the soft hum of the tires on the empty road
was like a cooling hand. The city had sunk to mere glowing sky. My own book was
not yet published but would be. It had no dimensions, no limit to the heights
it might reach. It was deep in my pocket, like an inheritance.

(These passages are from Salter’s memoir, Burning the Days. Photo: detail of wall mural from Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona)