Quotes by Jeff Vandermeer - Page 2

I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Care
Lush
Prose
Stories
Style
Take Care
Entirely
Strip
Toward
Copy Quote
The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Book
Thinking
Writing
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An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Crisis
Fracture
Soul
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Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Brain
Desire
Self
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Trump lays bare a lot of things already wrong with our society. But he also accelerates the process of it becoming worse, when it could be getting better.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Lays
Bare
Getting Better
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The world is a mysterious place and the very limitation of our senses in exploring it means we are sometimes aware of there being something beyond our ken.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Mean
Mysterious
World
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'Borne,' in a weird way, even though it's a totally different universe, picks up where the 'Southern Reach Trilogy' leaves off, because it's post-apocalyptic.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Picks
Southern
Borne
Leaves
Trilogy
Weird Way
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Dreams, though, are just one kind of inspiration - no more or less special than something in a newspaper article or from the world around you sparking inspiration.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Dream
Inspiration
Special
Copy Quote
I like delivering a message, but what I find interesting is providing those details in a different context. Then the readers can make up their minds what it means.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Interesting
Mean
Mind
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It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Born
Literature
World
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When you describe a character's dream, it has to be sharper than reality in some way and more meaningful. It has to somehow speak to plot, character, and all the rest.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Meaningful
Plot
Describe
Dream It
Sharper
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The stories in Get In Trouble confirm once again that Kelly Link is a modern virtuoso of the form-playful and subversive required reading for anyone who loves short fiction.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Fiction
Reading
Short Love
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When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Complexity
Dumb
Example
Natural
Natural World
Quantum
Quantum Mechanics
Smartphones
Thinking
Pretty
Begins
For Example
Look
Mechanics
Object
Plants
Using
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One of the most important things as a writing instructor is to provide a lot of different entry points to subjects. To not impose your own personal experience as the One True Way.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Different
Important
Writing
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Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Fiction
Goal
Mind
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I like to go through the zine sections of local bookstores when on the road and have found a lot of really great kind of underground stuff that way. It all feeds into everything else.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Bookstores
Stuff
Zines
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An important reason that we're in the trouble we are in with climate change is that we don't have a handle on our environment. We form public policy based on information that is wrong.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Climate
Climate Change
Environment
Handle
Information
Policy
Public Policy
Change Important Climate
Based
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Angela Carter, Leonora Carrington, even nonsurrealists like Kafka and Nabokov - writers like these, who create paths between the firmly grounded and flights of fantasy, are my personal North Star.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Fantasy
Path
Stars
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Angela Carter's fiction blew me away and really instilled a passion for writing, bolstered by Vladimir Nabokov. But in general, I can't point to any one thing. I just always loved books and writing.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Book
Passion
Writing
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Across all of the universe of creative lying, whether you believe in the art of it or the entertainment of it, or both, a certain foundation in the basics allows you to kind of jump out into the unknown.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Art
Believe
Lying
Copy Quote
Cross-pollination and "contamination" is really important to the health of fiction, and sometimes it's a literal conversation, too, in that writers who might never otherwise meet and talk do so because of our anthologies.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Fiction
Important
Might
Copy Quote
Cross-pollination and 'contamination' is really important to the health of fiction, and sometimes it's a literal conversation, too, in that writers who might never otherwise meet and talk do so because of our anthologies.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Contamination
Literal
Copy Quote
Every day, I get up, and I fill the bird feeders and put out fruit and other food for both the birds and any passing mammals. Is that pointless long-term? I have no idea. All I know is that on this day, in this moment, it makes a difference.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Bird
Long Term
Mammals
No Idea
Passing
Pointless
Fill
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Once you realize there's less logic in human institutions than you once thought, you see the narrative potential in just about everything around you. Sometimes, in fact, it seems as if the human world runs on inefficiency and erratic behavior.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Running
Logic
World
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My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Art
Mother
Strong
Visual
Art Work Always
Cover
Work Art Always
Soundtrack
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There are a lot of human-created systems that we like to tout as being logical that are actually riddled with illogic. And then, on the other hand, we have all these natural systems that are not conscious, but they are logical, and they work really well.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Conscious
Logical
Riddled
Systems
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Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. You can create little islands of time away from your novel that will help preserve your balance. Exhaustion will affect both your writing’s quality and your productivity.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Balance
Islands
Writing
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Vladimir Nabokov liked to examine cruelty and the human condition. That didn't mean he was cruel; there's no evidence he kicked puppies just for the fun of it. Similarly, 'Black Mirror' likes to examine possible dystopias, but that doesn't mean the show is cynical enough to endorse them.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Cynical
Evidence
Human Condition
Condition
Cruel
Endorse
Examine
Puppies
Similarly
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All musical talent is absent in me, to the point of being unable to play board games that require you to hum a tune while others guess what it is, since all my humming sounds the same. Musical instruments have always seemed like alien artifacts to me, even as I really admire anyone who can play one.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Games
Musical
Play
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One thing about beginning writers is that they don't really always know their own strengths and weaknesses - you might think you're bad at characterization, but that might really be because of some issue you're having with another element, which is making it hard for you to express character in a convincing way.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Character
Issues
Thinking
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My parents read to me a lot as a kid, and I started writing very early, probably spurred on by Aesop's fables. Then they gave me The Lord of the Rings way too early for me to fully understand what I was reading, which was actually kind of cool. It was almost better - comprehension's overrated when you're reading.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Kids
Reading
Writing
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What I envy about musicians is, they have this more direct relationship with the audience. They don't have to go through words. Sure, the lyrics count, but they go more immediately into your brain. There's so much more work you have to put in as a writer - not just with the actual book, but how it's packaged and everything.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Book
Brain
Envy
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A lot of the creature comforts and the things we take for granted, are not sustainable, especially at current population levels. And so, it's not just simply a matter of changing over to solar. It's a matter of changing our philosophies. Of learning to live, more or less, mid- or post-apocalyptic, whatever apocalyptic means.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Comfort
Mean
Philosophy
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I used to work for a succession of software editing companies that would have contracts with state and federal agencies. And I would be the documenter of meetings, sometimes doing limited business analysis. I began to become quite cynical about how the world works. It works on ineptitude and inefficiency and a kind of passiveness.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Analysis
Contracts
Inefficiency
Software
Succession
Agencies
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My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, "Don't write that," or "Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats."
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Coffee
Giving Up
Writing
Copy Quote
My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs - because, full disclosure, I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, 'Don't write that,' or, 'Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats.'
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Pet
Awake
Breakfast
Clicks
Coffee
Disclosure
Eggs
Cats
Best Time
Sentence
Copy Quote
I don't believe that climate-change fiction will change the mind of a denier because most of the deniers I've met are basically in a cult situation. It's a faith issue. It's not a rational issue. There's no fact that's going to change their mind. They simply believe in the cult of climate-change denial and it somehow feeds into the rest of the mythos of their own life story.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Believe
Denial
Mind
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A dream inspiring a story is different than placing a description of a dream in a story. When you describe a character's dream, it has to be sharper than reality in some way, and more meaningful. It has to somehow speak to plot, character, and all the rest. If you're writing something fantastical, it can be a really deadly choice because your story already has elements that can seem dreamlike.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Dream
Character
Meaningful
Copy Quote
I think I got a complete picture of what the lives of scientists are like. My father is of the opinion that if scientists are allowed to follow their nose, eventually it results in something. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen. What I came out of it with, in a non-cynical way, was that the scientific process is as messy as anything else. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Father
Opinion
Thinking
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It should be totally fine to question the objectivity of scientists and the power structures in scientific institutions. The physical laws of the universe are objective, but human beings in any context are not. That includes with regard to science. To some extent, the supposed objectivity of science has given a lot of extra cover to very subjective and eccentric approaches to exploring aspects of ourselves and the universe around us.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Exploring
Extras
Scientist
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We should feel an urgency about our environment and what's been done to it by human action and inaction. I wouldn't say there's a resurgence - I think it's been with us all along, and especially since the 1960s and 1970s, but it is true that there's almost a subsection of the bookstore devoted to it now. Personally, I've been addressing these issues in my long and short fiction since the late 1980s - basically since the beginning of my career.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Done
Long
Thinking
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I have received emails from readers who have said that they were emotionally impacted by the books, and they feel they are more environmentally aware and energized to do more. So that's hopeful to me. It is at least evidence of what I'm trying to do - trying to convey very intense emotional experiences by being very close in on character points of view to make you feel it in your body. That's one way to get the point across, by evoking a visceral response.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Book
Character
Emotional
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I find myself in this bizarre position in which everything I write and talk about is pretty much about this issue, the environment. It feels a little too comfortable, because at the end of the day I can rationalize that I'm doing my share. I don't know if I actually am, I don't know if I should be more of an activist than I am. But at the end of the day, everybody needs to do those things that they're most likely to continue doing, and that aren't going to burn them out.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Bizarre
Environment
Writing
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The city might be savage, stray dogs might share the streets with grimy urchins whose blank eyes reflected the knowledge that they might soon be covered over, blinded forever, by the same two pennies just begged from some gentleman, and no one in the fuming, fulminous boulevards of trade might know who actually ran Ambergris-or, if anyone ran it at all, but, like a renegade clock, it ran on and wound itself heedless, empowered by the insane weight of its own inertia, the weight of its own citizenry.
Jeff Vandermeer / Writer
Cities
Dog
Eye
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Jeff Vandermeer Quotes - Page 2

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