Writer Quotes

I truly don’t understand why at every Q and A, someone always asks, “Do you have a routine?” or “Do you write every morning?” Why those questions remain interesting, I really have no idea. But since no one’s putting a gun to their head to ask them, they must compel. They’re probably necessary on a symbolic level more than a literal one, as people cobble together an imagination of what a life devoted to “making” might be like.[I think people want a path to follow. They want a checklist so they can say, “Alright cool, so if I get up at six and I write for this long and I watch this film and I do that…”]It’s weird, because I might have wanted that, too. I used to dance in New York. My Lower East Side days. Modern dance, or whatever. One thing I learned as a dancer was that people learn combinations different ways. Some people, if they get the right side, they can also get the left side right off the top of their head. Some people need to be taught both right and left. Some people count, some people never count, you know? I noticed then that, for me, it was really watching the whole person dancing, trying to take in the whole combination at once, that helped me learn it. I think I’m the same way as a reader—I like to take in the whole book, not getting too specific about how they did it, but ride the bigger example.I mean, at the end of the day, the answer to the question “How did you do it?” is right there, on the page. They’re showing you how they did it, by doing it. Maybe it’s different with art, when you don’t know if someone had all their sculptures knitted or welded by elves somewhere, but with writing, the answer to the question “How do you write a book like this?” is usually, “Like this” [points to book].

Only after a writer lets literature shape her can she perhaps shape literature. In working-class France, when an apprentice got hurt, or when he got tired, the experienced workers said, "It is the trade entering his body." The art must enter the body, too.

Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourselfand let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story.Let your very identity be your book.Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

Charlotte Eriksson

Negative experiences repeat as long as they remain useful to you.

Pull back the curtain and jump down the rabbit hole.

Fall into the cavern of my mind, and together there, we will dine.

I head in the direction of the Eiffel Tower when I exit the alley, relieved to be out of the dark.

And so I just kept writing to myself.

Kimberly Novosel