How to be obscene
If it were necessary to write really obscene books, I wouldn’t recommend this plan, because real obscenity is altogether foreign to my interests. But the beauty of the plan is that you don’t have to write anything really harmful; all you have to do is to follow the example of the great masters of the world’s literature, and deal with the facts of life frankly and honestly. That is what the Boston police call “obscenity,” and as soon as the rest of the country understands that, it will be an honor to have the Boston advertisement. So far they have conferred it upon H. L. Mencken, Percy Marks, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser and myself. I am now engaged in trying to get them to confer it upon William Shakespeare and the author of the Book of Genesis, but they say these classics don’t need advertising.