#k

A period of time is as much an organising principle for a work of fiction as a sense of place. You can do geography, as Faulkner did, or you can dwell on a particular period. It provides the same framework. ↗

— E. L. Doctorow

#dwell #faulkner #fiction #framework #geography

The really magical things are the ones that happen right in front of you. A lot of the time you keep looking for beauty, but it is already there. And if you look with a bit more intention, you see it. ↗

— Vik Muniz

#awesome #beauty #brazil #inspiration #vik-muniz

I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Maybe that says something about bookstore clerks. ↗

— E. L. Doctorow

#am #bookstore #card #clerks #credit

I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn't need them, they were fly-specks on the page. ↗

— E. L. Doctorow

#belong #commas #detest #found #gave

I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleeping with whom and go home and write a novel about society. It's not the way I work. ↗

— E. L. Doctorow

#around #go #go home #home #i

I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on. ↗

— Anthony Doerr

#cab #difficult #driving #first #found

For me it was perfect, because it wasn't a very competitive environment, and it was a studio program. They basically send you off, and say, bring us some work, and we'll help you improve it. It really rewarded self-discipline. ↗

— Anthony Doerr

#because #bring #competitive #environment #help

I feel like it has gone very fast for me, but I feel like it wasn't instantaneous, at all. I was getting a lot of rejections. I just got very lucky and it happened quickly for me. I don't feel like I'm a prodigy or something. ↗

— Anthony Doerr

#feel #getting #gone #got #happened

It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words. ↗

— Anthony Doerr

#blank #blank page #days #down #five

My relationships with my loved ones always take precedence over work. ↗

— Lexa Doig

#loved #loved ones #ones #over #precedence