Edward M. Bernstein, the man who supposedly added the words “and Development” to “International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” talking to an interviewer, Stanley Black, about his good fortune in life; he got hired right out of graduate school to tenure at North Carolina State in 1930, the midst of the Great Depression.
Bernstein: No, I didn’t start at the bottom. To tell you the truth, although my wife doesn’t like me to say it, all my life I’ve been overappreciated, overhonored, and overpaid. Everywhere I went I got to the top of the scale very fast.
S.B.: It helps to have the talent with words, and writing.
Bernstein: Maybe, oh yes, there’s nothing like being able to write. Being able to write is a remarkable gift. There’s none better, if you can also think.
I really like that caveat. Though the exchange is also nice for Black’s Steve-Martinish interposition.
The Edge of the American West 
1 comment
November 9, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Vance
We’re all hesitant, no doubt, to comment on a post that threatens such stringency in judging our writing and thinking. Caution to the wind! The curiosity here, for me, is that Bernstein and Black are doing similar things with words — choosing a different word on a second pass — yet Bernstein, moving from “writing” to “thinking”, is snarky, while Black, moving from “talent with words” to “writing”, is a goof.