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Now, Knopf's still got some wonderfully important authors--John Hersey and Muriel Spark, John Updike and William Humphrey and Julia Child--but the agents have been finding it harder and harder to get him interested in young authors. I promised him furthermore that there was no reason to interfere with the excellent editors that he's got there now; Angus Cameron, Bill Koshland, and Ashbel Green-- nobody is going to disturb them.

This new group is coming in virtually to establish their own little publishing house inside of Knopf. It won't stay that way because nothing will ever stop Gottlieb and Schulte, but that's the way that it's going to start.

Getting older and finding your power ebbing is inevitable but a very discouraging piece of business. I see it happening here to me. As you get older, things begin slipping away from you. Young snips come along. At first they treat you with great deference. Gradually they forget that you are there. I watch my own sons, Chris and Jon.

But at least you have the feeling of a loving son, which is something that Mr. Knopf didn't.

Well, what happened to his son he is largely responsible for. He knows it too. His nature being what it is, he would give his son a job one day and then, in front of the whole staff, four days later, would say, “You're doing terribly,” and take it away from him.