An amateur lives with a different question altogether. It’s, “Am I really a writer? Am I a fraud? How can I possibly be a writer? I don’t know enough to be a writer.” On the other hand, “I know things nobody else knows.” In other words, there’s a great deal of arrogance and inferiority in someone who is an amateur. They really don’t have a measure of themselves. And in that sense, that was absolutely true when I was writing The Naked and the Dead. I didn’t know if it was any good at all or if it was the greatest thing since War and Peace. I was all up and down all over the place. I had no idea if it was going to sell 1,000 copies or do very well. I remember saying to my editor at a certain time, “Do you realize that if The Naked and the Dead doesn’t sell, I’ll have to write historical novels to make a living?” Something of that sort. You know? I was complaining, and I was staggered when the thing became a bestseller, and I wasn’t ready for it.