John Steinbeck, in an interview, after receiving the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, said, “I’ve never looked upon myself as an author”

“I’ve never looked upon myself as an author. The word ‘author’ has always horrified me, the quality of phoniness, fakeness about it you know…I’ve considered myself a writer, because that’s what I do. I don’t know what an author does. An author collects things [Nobel Prizes?]; a writer does the work.”

If you took Steinbeck’s distinction between author and writer at face value, he would seem to be rather silly and petty. But if Steinbeck had more than one personality, and something about that interview had provoked Steinbeck’s writing personality to take over from his host personality (the “author”), whom the writing personality had always resented for taking undeserved credit, then it would make more sense.

Have I explained the silly with the far-fetched? I just happened upon the above quotation online, but I plan to read Steinbeck later this year.