I've written five books, a book every three years. I'm fairly lazy and it doesn't take that much...people who are not lazy are Isaac Asimov.

- Ethan Canin

I think talent has a huge amount to do with concentration, concentration rather than the athletic ability of your neurons. If you can concentrate on …

- Ethan Canin

You can tell within a sentence if something is fiction or non-fiction. You can tell in the artifice of the language or the care of the construction t…

- Ethan Canin

If someone doesn't like your fiction, it's really insulting.

- Ethan Canin

I think fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition.

- Ethan Canin

You have to be smart enough to see the world for yourself and honest. The whole book-publicity thing is not really honest, at base.

- Ethan Canin

Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.

- Ethan Canin

There are some advantages to being a writer: you do generally get better as you get older. I think I understand things better. When I was a kid, I wa…

- Ethan Canin

Writing a book is like an unknown abyss, every time. Every book is different. Contrary to what unpublished writers think, it's horrible to have a boo…

- Ethan Canin