Blazing forth and muddling through

Philip Roth may have stopped writing but he sure can write well still. Read the interview in the New York Times (January 16, 2018) in its entirety but for here, this excerpt:

Looking back, how do you recall your 50-plus years as a writer?
Philip Roth: Exhilaration and groaning. Frustration and freedom. Inspiration and uncertainty. Abundance and emptiness. Blazing forth and muddling through. The day-by-day repertoire of oscillating dualities that any talent withstands — and tremendous solitude, too. And the silence: 50 years in a room silent as the bottom of a pool, eking out, when all went well, my minimum daily allowance of usable prose.