Quotes by Joanna Scott - Page 1

As entertainment, fiction may offer momentary relief from the stresses of reality.
Joanna Scott /
Momentary
Relief
Stresses
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In the early 1980s, I spent a year working as an assistant at the Elaine Markson Literary Agency.
Joanna Scott /
Agency
Assistant
Literary
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Jim Longenbach, poet, critic, and my husband, is always passing along life-changing books for me to read.
Joanna Scott /
Husband
Life Changing
Passing
Critic
Jim
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The best liars lie with their eyes rather than with their words. This might put writers at a disadvantage.
Joanna Scott /
Liars
Disadvantage
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How wonderful it would be to scatter words as they rise to consciousness, to let them lie where they fall.
Joanna Scott /
Consciousness
Rise
Scatter
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In the ongoing celebration that is literature, we are asked to imagine ourselves as other selves, for better or worse.
Joanna Scott /
Celebration
Ongoing
Selves
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Masks are wonderfully paradoxical in this way: while they may hide the physical reality, they can show us how a person wants to be seen.
Joanna Scott /
May
Paradoxical
Reality
Way
Person
Seen
Show
How
Hide
Masks
Physical
Wants
While
Wonderfully
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As children know, there's lots of fun in nonsense. We never stop benefiting from staying flexible, open and responsive, even in the midst of confusion.
Joanna Scott /
Confusion
Flexible
Midst
Nonsense
Staying
Lots
Benefiting
Never Stop
Responsive
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Whether art is defined as a representation of or response to reality, it demands an intense engagement with things we haven't managed to understand fully.
Joanna Scott /
Defined
Engagement
Intense
Representation
Response
Fully
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While it can be pleasurable to move speedily through a work of fiction, there's a different sort of pleasure to be had in lingering, backtracking, rereading the same page.
Joanna Scott /
Lingering
Page
Pleasurable
Same Page
Speedily
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Complex literary works demand an effort from the reader that is becoming harder to justify, given the sink-or-swim pressures to make profitable products for a global marketplace.
Joanna Scott /
Demand
Justify
Marketplace
Profitable
Literary
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There's a point I set for myself, and it's an arbitrary point, when I think no matter happens, I'm going to finish that book. And that's when I get to page 100. I have to see it out.
Joanna Scott /
Arbitrary
Finish
Page
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When we read about reading, we get to share an experience that is usually kept private. Incisive descriptions of reading help us to understand what is going on when our eyes move across words on the page.
Joanna Scott /
Reading
Share
Across
Descriptions
Page
Private
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With prurient absorption and only minimal risk, we can pretend to be the subject of the lead article on the front page of the Style section of our local newspaper for as long as it takes to finish our morning coffee.
Joanna Scott /
Coffee
Absorb
Article
Pretend
Finish
Front Page
Minimal
Newspaper
Page
Section
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I don't think Donald Barthelme would have minded being called a confusing writer. Confusion was a favorite subject for him in his essays and reviews, and it's enacted in his fiction in a mishmash of dizzying incongruities.
Joanna Scott /
Confusing
Essays
Donald
Minded
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The past is full of examples of renegade writers who were overlooked in their time not only because their work didn't fit neatly into potted categories but also because they avoided the self-promotional efforts of their peers.
Joanna Scott /
Avoided
Categories
Overlooked
Peers
Time Work Past
Efforts
Examples
Work Time Past
Neatly
Renegade
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Vladimir Nabokov on 'Bleak House' or Henry James on 'The House of the Seven Gables' prove that reading can be an exciting subject in itself, full of passionate encounters, contradictory judgments, striking discoveries, and unexpected reversals.
Joanna Scott /
Bleak
Contradictory
Encounters
Unexpected
Discoveries
James
Judgments
Striking
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The novelist in me is probably hiding behind all the stories I write, looking for ways to connect them and continue the conversation with readers. Maybe I'm writing one long narrative, and each book, however different from the last, is just a chapter.
Joanna Scott /
Conversation
Hiding
Narrative
Chapter
Connect
Novelist
Readers
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I'm really such a bumbler! Writing fiction is like arranging furniture in a dark room. I can't see what I'm doing. I grope for the right words. I bump against the wrong words and stumble and stub my toe and curse and keep trying to guess what belongs in the space.
Joanna Scott /
Arranging
Curse
Furniture
Right Words
Belongs
Bump
Stumble
Toe
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'Out of Africa,' Dinesen's second book, is a love story, though not the one portrayed by Streep and Redford in the film. The memoir is about Dinesen's love of East Africa - the cultures, the landscapes, the animals. The feeling that saturates the book is reverence.
Joanna Scott /
East
Love Story
Memoir
Reverence
Cultures
Landscapes
Portrayed
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When we really start searching for the truth in stories, we can find it everywhere, not just in sincere confessions but in the deliberate lies and imagined possibilities, the magic and fantasy, and all the other unreal elements that go into the concoction of identity.
Joanna Scott /
Deliberate
Elements
Fantasy
Identity
Magic
Sincere
Unreal
Everywhere
Confessions
Lies
Possibilities
Searching
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There are plenty of writers, past and present, from Shakespeare to Henry James to Lydia Davis, who test the limits of coherence and put pressure on current notions of accessible (and acceptable) narrative methods. To thrive and change and grow, any art needs this kind of pressure.
Joanna Scott /
Acceptable
Coherence
Limits
Narrative
Plenty
Pressure
Thrive
Accessible
Davis
Current
Writers
Henry
James
Present
Notions
Shakespeare
Test
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Telling ourselves that fiction is in a sense true and at the same time not true is essential to the art of fiction. It's been at the heart of fiction from the start. Fiction offers both truth, and we know it's a flat-out lie. Sometimes it drives a novelist mad. Sometimes it energizes us.
Joanna Scott /
Offers
Drives
Essential
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My first two books, I was very close to my main character, stuck inside their head. And then with 'Arrogance,' I broke into many different voices. I introduce many different characters, and that helped me to develop a confidence to move between different characters, between different voices.
Joanna Scott /
Confidence
Arrogance
Broke
Different Characters
Stuck
Develop
Helped
Introduce
Main
Main Character
Voices
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Writing that flirts with incoherence can just as readily flounder as writing characterized by simplicity and composure. There is no reliable formula for originality, and strategies that are distinguished as innovative in their first incarnation can quickly become stale in the hands of lesser artists.
Joanna Scott /
Composure
Distinguished
Incarnation
Innovative
Originality
Simplicity
Stale
Characterized
Lesser
Readily
Reliable
Strategies
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I feel there has to be a certain amount of improvisation as I'm writing, which means any idea or any commitment to a project is risky. It involves time; it involves gathering of material, and sometimes it just doesn't work. Sometimes it does. As I'm starting out on a project, I can't tell if it will click or not.
Joanna Scott /
Gathering
Improvisation
Time Work Will
Click
Involves
Risky
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Reviewers try to square the antics of a writer's life with the antics in the fiction. Even satirical verbal play is too often read and admired as autobiographical expression. And thanks to the democratic exposures of the web, it's easier than ever to document private experiences and divulge the most intimate secrets.
Joanna Scott /
Intimate
Reviewers
Satirical
Thanks
Admired
Autobiographical
Document
Square
Verbal
Web
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If the rules of a language are followed, words usually make sense. But these very rules can stir the impulse to rebel. We're obliged to keep trying to convey meaning through correct sentences. After a while, the good-soldier rigidity of polished prose can begin to seem dull, and it gets harder to resist the temptation of nonsense.
Joanna Scott /
Dull
Impulse
Nonsense
Obliged
Polished
Prose
Rebel
Rigidity
Sentences
Temptation
Convey
Correct
Followed
Resist
Stir
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Joanna Scott Quotes - Page 1

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