Genre is a minimum security prison.

- David Shields

I'm wonderfully self-lacerating, probably to my character's detriment. I'm terribly open to critique.

- David Shields

I don’t know what’s the matter with me, why I’m so adept at distance, why I feel so remote from things, why life feels like a rumor.

- David Shields

Thomas Jefferson went through the New Testament and removed all the miracles, leaving only the teachings. Take a source, extract what appeals to you,…

- David Shields

With relatively few exceptions, the novel sacrifices too much, for me, on the altar of plot.

- David Shields

Our culture is obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any.

- David Shields

I'm not interested in collage as the refuge of the composition-ally disabled. I'm interested in collage as (to be honest) an evolution beyond narrati…

- David Shields

The absence of plot leaves the reader room to think about other things.

- David Shields

To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

- David Shields