Our time is always apocalyptic, and we are each responsible for the apocalypse. The literary task lies in marking this ‘end of times’ in our work.
The Situation in American Writing: Blake Butler
The nebulous enemy is not terrorism, it is us. I mean that in the kindest way.
The Situation in American Writing: Eileen Myles
The desire to make a living as a writer is a true perversion in this culture but I think we need our perverts more than ever.
The Situation in American Writing: Yannick Murphy
You don’t become a writer to pay the rent. If you do make money at writing, then you’re not only a writer, you gain an extra word in your title, and you become a “lucky writer.”
The Situation in American Writing: James Boice
Books last forever — reviews don’t. Writers live forever — critics don’t.
The Situation in American Writing: Alex Shakar
People think that spirituality is about beliefs, but it isn’t. It’s about looking, as deeply as possible, into the believer. If literature has a function, for me, this approaches it.
The Situation in American Writing: Justin Taylor
I think our current economic system is a shambles and a sham. We’re all making do as best we can.
The Situation in American Writing: Geoff Dyer
When my latest book got copy edited and type-set, spelling and punctuation were fully Americanized — and it just didn’t work. I had to accept, albeit a little grudgingly, what an English writer I am.
The Situation in American Writing: Alexander Chee
Here in America we are like a people asleep and dreaming on top of something we both know and don’t know is an enormous weapon aimed at the whole world, including every one of us.
The Situation in American Writing: Steve Almond
Literature’s essential moral duty is to make us feel more than we did before, to induce the radical empathy that helps us imagine the suffering and exaltation of other human beings.