Interviewer: Do you think that the word processor has had or is having any effect on the study of literature?

Bloom: There cannot be a human being who has fewer thoughts on the whole question of word processing than I do. I’ve never even seen a word processor. I am hopelessly archaic.

Interviewer: Perhaps you see an effect on students’ papers then?

Bloom: But for me the typewriter hasn’t even been invented yet, so how can I speak to this matter? I protest! A man who has never learned to type is not going to be able to add anything to this debate. As far as I’m concerned, computers have as much to do with literature as space travel, perhaps much less. I can only write with a ballpoint pen, with a Rolling Writer, they’re called, a black Rolling Writer on a lined yellow legal pad on a certain kind of clipboard. And then someone else types it.

Interviewer: And someone else edits?

Bloom: No one edits. I edit. I refuse to be edited.

This passages comes from The Paris Review Interviews Vol. II, which is much recommended, and should be considered in light of my recent post on The computer, operating system, or word processor a writer or novelist uses doesn’t matter much, although I still like Macs. If Bloom, Freud, and Shakespeare could get by without debating the operating system or word processor being used, so too should you (this isn’t the same as saying you shouldn’t use a word processor, but rather that you should spend the minimum amount of time worrying about it, and the maximum amount of time worrying about your writing).