“If the city of my birth should wish to perpetuate my name clearly but harmlessly,” Steinbeck once suggested, “let it name a bowling alley after me or a dog track or even a medium price, low-church brothel.”
I know some of them have extreme content, but to me it’s always been organic to the stories and not designed to shock for shock’s sake. To me, all my books are serious books, written with serious intent.
I find it both beautiful and sad how these great expectations can fail to pan out, and how people can still find life in the aftermath.
We identify so completely with our own suffering, then wish to visit our suffering upon others in turn. Makes one wish we could just have a nice simple fistfight and be done.
It never reached the level of aesthetic. That’s like a craps shooter talking about his skill with dice. I was just hoping to get lucky.
I didn’t want to provide my reader with the solace of a comfortable laugh. I think the best laughs are ones we feel guilty about indulging in.
Hemingway once explained: There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. If that is the case, then there was much blood shed in this barn.
The questionnaire punctures the bravado of the manifesto, which is such a singular, almost bold, optimistic doctrine or document. The questionnaire allows room for doubt, ambivalence, dissent, and debate.
We went to Occupy Wall Street to affect people. What we did on Wall Street didn’t solve any problems. But it was effective. We weren’t just protesting financiers. We were also trying to calm everyone down
The Situation in American Writing: Courtney Maum
I have spent a lot of time recently preoccupied with the feeling that the end is somewhat near.