ideal-length-little-interior-gauge-whether-youre-house-piece-long-tension

There is no ideal length, but you develop a little interior gauge that tells you whether or not you're supporting the house or detracting from it. When a piece gets too long, the tension goes out of it. That word—tension—has an animal insistence for me. A piece of writing rises and falls with tension. The writer holds one end of the rope and the reader holds the other end—is the rope slack, or is it tight? Does it matter to the reader what the next sentence is going to be?

John Jeremiah Sullivan
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John Jeremiah Sullivan's Popular Quotes

It is a curious fact that the word essayist showed up in English before it existed in French.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

Reporting provides reminders that things are always more complicated than you think.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

One of the best things I’ve read about that inexplicably, but endlessly, fascinating group of people, the so-called Serious Collectors of 78s. Petrus…

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The city of Cork - the urban center, where all the shops and bars and everything are - is actually an island, a river island.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

At GQ, there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

Not watching TV gets me in a lot of trouble in my household because my wife and daughter have a lot of shows they like to watch.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

Freaky things happen all the time in the world. I suppose everything has to happen for the first time at some point.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

Ireland starts for me with the end of The Dead, which my father read to me from his desk in his basement office in New Albany, Ind.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan

A good writer wants from us — or has no right to ask more than — intelligence, good faith and time.

- John Jeremiah Sullivan
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