Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

- Marisa Silver

The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.

- Marisa Silver

I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

- Marisa Silver

The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft.

- Marisa Silver

Things, very strange things, happen in folktales and there is never much attention given to the whys and wherefores.

- Marisa Silver

In fact, not knowing is a necessary condition of writing for me. I don't know how else to reach something unexpected. I have to be as in the dark as …

- Marisa Silver

Because answers are inert things that stop inquiry. They make you think you have finished looking. But you are never finished. There are always disco…

- Marisa Silver

I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is form…

- Marisa Silver

Writing, for me, is always a dance between the critical part of my brain and the subconscious.

- Marisa Silver