54 quotes found
Novelist · American · 1941
American novelist (born 1941)
“Past is past... no it's not! People are always fond of saying that, but what's past is never past; not entirely.”
“Alex Barrow’s broad face, with the roughened skin that gave him an air of experience. His powerful, packed, wrestler’s body. The thick black fur at the base of his throat. It was wrong to call him ...”
“Ghosts... they are the completions of the deads intended gestures, there unfinished plans still hanging in the air - something like when you forgot one thing and so you pantomime the motion.”
“But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.”
“Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.”
“The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.”
“People always call it luck when you’ve acted more sensibly than they have.”
“Why wasn't there an etiquette book for runaway wives?”
“It seems to me that since I've had children I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while but when I did write I had more of a self to speak from.”
“I’m more in touch with my emotions and the visceral sensory from childhood than any other part of life. I don’t know if it helps with creativity, but I do know that when I talk to other writers the...”
“I am very comfortable writing as a man, and I think that’s because I had really good men in my life. They made me feel comfortable and I thought, ‘OK, they’re not so different from me…’”
“I know the world does not need another book from me, but I have nothing else to do with myself. I have no hobbies. So then I feel guilty when I say to my agent, ‘I seem to have another book ready i...”
“…‘I think I was a better writer when I was younger.’…I was more detailed, I took more time. It’s not as if I’m in a rush now, but I trust the reader more. I don’t feel like I have to say that much ...”
“Toni Morrison, Kay Boyle, Philip Roth, Peter Matthiessen, Anne Tyler, and Rosellen Brown read an unknown manuscript and responded with those quotes and marks of approval that appear on book jackets...”
