Occupation: Author Birth: February 3, 1947
Most of my friends' fathers had been in the war - either as soldiers or in some other capacity in the military. Whereas my father had not fought. He ….
I'm really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What a….
We are left with nothing but death, the irreducible fact of our own mortality. Death after a long illness we can accept with resignation. Even accide….
Writing has always had a tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience..
When I look back at experience [with my father], all I can do is feel pity. You know, how torn he was about how to act, what to say. And it seems an ….
You can't ever approach a book as a complete virgin, certainly not if you're a critic. There is a lot of bad faith out there. That's why I finally tr….
You find the book in the process of doing it. That's the adventure of the job..
I've been trying to fit everything in, trying to get to the end before it's too late, but I see now how badly I've deceived myself. Words do not allo….
When I write, the story is always uppermost in my mind, and I feel that everything must be sacrificed to it. All elegant passages, all the curious de….
Everyone reads a different book. That's what's interesting. Everyone sees a different film, as well. We bring our past lives to whatever work of art ….
The most challenging project I've ever done, I think, is every single thing I've ever tried to do. It's never easy..
I don't think about the stories so much, as the characters themselves. They live on, and they are almost as real as I am..
and now we get to the hard part. the endings, the farewells, and the famous last words. if you don't hear from me often, remember that you're in my t….
It's beyond the grasp of anyone's memory to recall conversations in kind of [memoir] detail. So it's fake. It's all made up..
The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all instances you try to write good sentences….
I was very moved to see that the name of the boat was Hamlet - an imaginary character becomes so important to people, we think about them so much tha….
Even you, who’ve lived inside your body for 64 years, would apparently be unable to recognize your foot in an isolated photograph of that foot, not t….
Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I've changed my mind about a lot of things over the years..
Those of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the bedtime story, when our mother or father would sit….
It would be a terrible world if everyone was an artist. Nothing would get done!.
[Charles] Reznikoff was in between faiths, in between worlds... a double, hyphenated American. I think it probably goes deeper than that..