“...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life--it was not worth much--not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one--we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.”

American novelist and short-story writer, Air Force officer and pilot

James Salter was an American novelist and short-story writer. He is best known under his pen name, and later legal name, James Salter. He was also a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, until he resigned in 1957 after the success of his first novel, The Hunters. Salter wrote fiction shaped by a life in and around military service, and his work is often associated with precision, restraint, and close attention to character and experience. His reputation rests on novels and short stories that reflect the discipline and pressure of those worlds.