Guess who wrote this and win a bottle of champagne:

A talent for writing is not contagious; it must be slowly acquired . . . . It will be ten years before he can live by his pen . . . and who would want the ten years I’ve just lived through? Does he have the protection I enjoyed? Would he meet women who would broaden his mind, between caresses, by raising the curtain that hides the world’s stage? Would he have time to visit the salons? Does he have a genius for observation? Will he collect ideas that will blossom fifteen years from now? A writer is a phenomenon that no one understands.

Clue: He loved..coffee.