"Now things are so expensive, and there's so much pressure to make money." Robert Greene on why it's harder to make a living as an artist today: "Back in the day, you could be an artist and life wasn't so expensive. You could afford to write something a little bit unconventional and you'd still make a little bit of money, but you could still afford your loft in New York." "If you're a writer, how are you gonna make money? Well, you could become a professor, and that's pretty soul sucking. Or you can write books. Do you know how hard that is?" "It's easy for me. I am so lucky. But for most writers, you get a $20,000 to $50,000 advance. I have to write the book in a year, otherwise I can't live on it. And how often do you see royalties?" "So you have to write the book quickly, and you have to make a living. And that's what I think is making writing suffer, because it's no longer something that you can just take your time with."