Take Your Time

William S. Burroughs was 39 when he published his first novel, Junky. 

Desperation

Gustave Courbet

The Desperate Man, 1844–45

Oil on canvas

Courbet himself never mentioned this enigmatic work, which remained with him until his death. The painting has been read as an image of the artist as mad genius, and an autobiographical work depicting the artist in a moment of personal and artistic crisis. It probably was painted about 1844–45, after Courbet had been rejected several times by the Salon jury and was becoming disillusioned with his youthful Romantic ideals. Looking back on his early struggles, Courbet would comment, "How I was made to suffer despair in my youth!"(metmuseum.org)

Shiele

Girl, leans back onto the pillow, pushes a mess of damp strawberry hair out of her face. Boy, drifts off to sleep. Girl, begins to study his warm, wiry frame (her mind soon returns to art).  "Egon Shiele" she thinks. "His body, yes, a Shiele nude."
(Keane Wainscott)

"On a cold windswept street, this was a warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive." (A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway)