Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Art is not in some far-off place.
I see people sometimes who remind me of my narrators.
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant:that Scotland has so few trees.
I first read 'Madame Bovary' in my teens or early twenties.
I can talk for a long time only when it's about something boring.
Like a tropical storm, I, too, may one day become ‘better organized.
I've gotten very alert not just to mixed metaphor but to any writing mistake.
I think a lot of what goes into writing can be taught - not mixing metaphors, etc.
Do what you want to do, and don't worry if it's a little odd or doesn't fit the market.
I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting.
I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters.
I always interrupt work with other work, either in a small way or big way, so that's normal.
Because I'm not writing all the time (thank goodness), my mind is sometimes pleasantly blank.
If you think of something, do it. Plenty of people often think, “I’d like to do this, or that.
Of course we may have any number of translations of a given text - the more the better, really.
When I'm trying a new form- trying to do something I'm not used to doing, which was true of the novel.
Collections aren't really planned. I just keep writing short pieces until I have enough for a collection.
I would recommend, definitely, developing a 'day job' that you like - don't expect to make money writing!
Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer.
I don't like to hurt people's feelings, and I don't like to knock other writers as a matter of principle.
I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like to knock other writers as a matter of principle.
Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.
I find teaching - I like it, but I find just walking into the classroom and facing the students very difficult.
My stories are sometimes closer to poems or meditations, but often there is at least a little narrative in them.
I'm used to rereading e-mails, even, before sending them - a bit compulsive. So this is high speed roller coaster for me!
I think the close work I do as a translator pays off in my writing - I'm always searching for multiple ways to say things.
But it is curious how you can see that an idea is absolutely true and correct and yet not believe it deeply enough to act on it.
I never dream in French, but certain French words seem better or more fun than English words - like 'pois chiches' for chick peas!
Work hard and meticulously. When in trouble, look closely at a text that is a good example of what you're trying to do. And be patient.
I'm a fierce editor! I don't edit out things that I began by saying, usually. The editing is on the micro level - a comma here, a word there.
I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek.
I follow my interests pretty - I don't like the word 'intuitively.' I follow them in a kind of natural way, without questioning them too much.
I do think novels are overlooked. I did write one some years ago that I think is quite good, called 'The End of the Story,' not to blow my own horn.
So the question really is, Why doesn't that pain make you say, I won't do it again? When the pain is so bad that you have to say that, but you don't.
There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.
I don't believe a good poet is very often deliberately obscure. A poet writes in a way necessary to him or her; the reader may then find the poem difficult.
If I was writing about an academic or a more difficult person, I would use the Latinate vocabulary more, but I do think Anglo-saxon is the language of emotion.
There is something very pleasing about the principles of science and the rules of math, because they are so inevitable and so harmonious - in the abstract, anyway.
As the writer, I may choose to ignore the emotional heart of the matter, and focus on details, and trust that the heart of the matter will be conveyed nevertheless.
I am basically the sort of person who has stage-fright teaching. I kind of creep into a classroom. I'm not an anecdote-teller, either, although I often wish I were.
That's the interesting thing about writing. You can start late, you can be ignorant of things, and yet, if you work hard and pay attention you can do a good job of it.
I started with small-press publishers, who were willing to publish all sorts of forms. I didn't move to the larger presses until they knew what they were getting in for.
To be simple, I would say a story has to have a bit of narrative, if only "she says," and then enough of a creation of a different time and place to transport the reader.
I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it.
I think I have a sense right in the beginning of how big an idea it is and how much room it needs, and, almost more importantly, how long it would sustain anybody's interest.
Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to people - or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original.
the translator, a lonely sort of acrobat, becomes confused in a labyrinth of paradox, or climbs a pyramid of dependent clauses and has to invent a way down from it in his own language.
Even though I believe a superlative translation can achieve timelessness, that doesn't mean I think other translators shouldn't attempt other versions. The more the better, in the end.
I do see an interest in writing for Twitter. While publishers still do love the novel and people do still like to sink into one, the very quick form is appealing because of the pace of life.
No one is calling me. I can’t check the answering machine because I have been here all this time. If I go out, someone may call while I’m out. Then I can check the answering machine when I come back in.