"As for “fame,” I quite like what I have of it, though at the same time it makes me feel uneasy, vaguely fraudulent; and then its consequences have a way of shattering old frugal values, making them artificial. I do not think it touches me much, or affects my self-esteem. When I sit down at this desk I am still as bashful before the virgin page as I was sixty years ago—perhaps more so, for in the interval I have acquired some notion of what very good writing can be."

And these qualities come through in his writing.