Lipton’s Journal/February 2, 1955/430

The artist and his paranoia. As I’ve written before, paranoia sees the ultimate danger in the trivial circumstance. The sense of time (which is either the same or very close to the sense of proportion) is deficient. But this is why artists are always paranoid. To be ahead of one’s time, to see tendencies before others see them, is exactly the talent of the artist, and his insights are given by the racing terrified ultimate sense of paranoia.