Sometimes language gets in the way of the story's feelings. The reader finds himself experiencing the language of the story rather than the story. The words sit there on the page like coins, with their own opacity, as though they're there for their own sake. "A man goes into a phone booth, stirring coins in his palm." "Stirring" is such an obviously selected word. You can feel the writer looking for the word as he sat at the typewriter.
Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another. - Leonard Michaels
Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another.
- Leonard Michaels
Stories should be natural as apples, brief as lust, long as a thought. - Leonard Michaels
Stories should be natural as apples, brief as lust, long as a thought.
There's hardly anywhere in literature where you don't find a triangle. - Leonard Michaels
There's hardly anywhere in literature where you don't find a triangle.
There is always something for which there is no accounting. Take, for example, the whole world. - Leonard Michaels
There is always something for which there is no accounting. Take, for example, the whole world.
The prose as such has to be singing the song the story is telling. - Leonard Michaels
The prose as such has to be singing the song the story is telling.
I read assiduously. I kept in touch with my species. - Leonard Michaels
I read assiduously. I kept in touch with my species.
Is the story developing an attitude or victimized by it. - Leonard Michaels
Is the story developing an attitude or victimized by it.
Looking at a cat, like looking at clouds or stars or the ocean, makes it difficult to believe there is nothing miraculous in this world. - Leonard Michaels
Looking at a cat, like looking at clouds or stars or the ocean, makes it difficult to believe there is nothing miraculous in this world.
Sometimes language gets in the way of the story's feelings. The reader finds himself experiencing the language of the story rather than the story. Th… - Leonard Michaels
Sometimes language gets in the way of the story's feelings. The reader finds himself experiencing the language of the story rather than the story. Th…
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