There has always been a tension in my life between the romantic and the practical. I can't hole myself up in a cabin and write down ideas for the rest of my life. I also need to be able to clean out a dog bite.
From Ethan Canin
Every time I'd sing or play piano when I was a child, my dad would yell up from the basement, 'That's B-flat!'
There once was this powerful, both capital and political, class who cared about supporting and affirming a solid middle class in this country.
I have a very bad memory. I can't remember my own life very well.
Fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition, small disappointed hope.
Your first book is kind of a labor of ignorance. You don't realize the difficulty of it. Your second book is sort of a labor of fear. Then you sort of either hit a stride, or you don't.
John Cheever was the first writer I ever read who sort of had that similar sensation that, you know, life is nasty, miserable, brutish and short, but that occasionally, there's a certain river of light, a kind word, a telling gesture that sort of illuminates something.
Medicine ended up being the best thing I ever did for my writing.
There's a beauty to math. Math is so simple. It's just one step after the next.
I don't think there is such a thing as pure imagination. I think it's a combination of memory and invention.
9 perspectives
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