Despite Joyce's revolutionary techniques, the author repeatedly emphasized that the book was neither random nor meaningless; with Richard Ellmann quoting the author as having stated: "I can justify every line of my book." To Sisley Huddleston he stated "critics who were most appreciative of "Ulysses" are complaining about my new work. They cannot understand it. Therefore they say it is meaningless. Now if it were meaningless it could be written quickly without thought, without pains, without erudition; but I assure you that these 20 pages now before us chapter I.8 cost me twelve hundred hours and an enormous expense of spirit." When the editor of "Vanity Fair" asked Joyce if the sketches in "Work in Progress" were consecutive and interrelated, Joyce replied "It is all consecutive and interrelated."