Toni Morrison — Good, but never simple
These are fantastic questions, and I have to be honest that I’ve never not had another job in addition to writing fiction. And, so, when I meet someone, I generally just say that I teach, because that’s my 9 to 5 job that pays our bills. It’s not that I don’t think I’m a writer or even feel weird about asserting it, but most people who ask are just... See more
Kevin Wilson • On What Makes a Good Writer with Kevin Wilson
That’s the million-dollar question: What makes a reader keep reading? Are there laws of fiction, as there are laws of physics? Do some things just work better than others? What forges the bond between reader and writer and what breaks it? Well, how would we know? One way would be to track our mind as it moves from line to line.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
what Nadia Boulanger taught me: “Your music can never be more or less than you are as a human being.”
Quincy Jones • 12 Notes: On Life and Creativity
There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer’s estimation of a work in progress and its actual quality. The feeling that the work is magnificent, and the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed, but not indulged.