Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you...
And so I do. When I can’t think of another stall, when putting it off has actually become more painful than doing it, I reach up and pluck the butterfly from the air. I take it from the region of my h...
All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn’t listen to, won’t remember, never got right, wasn’t around for. All
Nebraska was white, a page as still as fallen snow. It was not crosshatched with roads, overrun with the hard lines of interstate systems. It was a state on which you could make lists, jot down phone...
Have never subscribed to the notion of writing what you know, at least not for myself. I don’t know enough interesting things.
Espaliered
Demand absolute cooperation and attention. Roughly two-thirds of the guests looked frightened, but a scattered third looked both frightened and puzzled. These were the ones leaning towards the man wit...
But sometimes all the right things are as useless as nothing at all. Life,
Your mom doesn't know about the movie, does she? My mom doesn't know about the book, he said, It turns out a novel isn't the worst place to hide things.
You throw a person in the river and then make a spectacle of jumping in to save them.
You keep someone always for what he or she is worth to you, for what you can trade her for, money or freedom or somebody else you want more. Any person can be a kind of trading chip when you find a wa...
You have to remember that they could go at any time, and if a man’s smart he never forgets that.
We set off walking backwards, thumbs out, trying to hitchhike to the postoperative breast augmentation appointment, perhaps a first in the state of Iowa.
We are, however, entirely responsible for procrastination, and in the best of all possible worlds, we should also be responsible for being honest with ourselves about what is really going on. I
This was the pleasure of a long life: the way some things worked themselves out.
There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.
Their relationship, which had been going on five years, was built on admiration and mutual disbelief. After
The process of putting the thing you value most in the world out for the assessment of strangers is a confidence-shaking business even in the best of times. But in Lucy's circumstances it was sheer he...
The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.
The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.