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" I'm not sure if a writer should talk about themes. Themes arrive out of the deeper structure and concerns, but to me, the main thing is getting it down right, writing about specific characters in specific predicaments, and finding a way to be true to the story itself, not only in the first burst of draft but in the revision, too. "

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" Those who see beauty almost too intensely can easily look mad to those who are functioning within the confines of so-called normal life. "

David Means

Normal

Mad

Beauty

" Undergraduate writers seem to be, in a way, more open to letting themselves just write. "

David Means

Way

Just

" I don't think you could write fiction or create art unless you are sort of a positive person. "

" A short story collection can be as exciting as a novel. It is a real complete experience, like when you listen to a real good recording, a Beatles record, and there are so many good songs. "

" I think a good story can do as much as a novel; not the exact same thing, of course, but just as much artistically. They're different beasts, but to tackle an expansive country like the United States, you're either going to write a big novel, or go in to various points on the map and write stories or poems. "

" My characters - no, make that most characters - are seeking the shelter of narrative resolution, a place of quiet and grace. "

" I studied English at the College of Wooster in Ohio, and I did an M.F.A. in Poetry at Columbia. "

" The wonderful thing about being an American writer is you've got this vastness to draw from. "

" I'm a relatively optimistic kind of guy. "

" I was a kid who was born and raised on Johnny Cash. My father played 'At Folsom Prison' constantly. Cash was the only thing I remember coming from our big, warm stereo console. Even then, I knew Cash was uncool. I knew he was an unhip Republican. "

" I like landscape, I guess. It's kind of a game to see how you can describe it. "

David Means

See

Landscape

" I knew for years I wanted to write a novel that addressed the personal trauma of my older sister, who suffered - and still suffers - from mental illness. For a long time I imagined - and I know it's absurd - that she was an indirect casualty of the Vietnam War. "

" Americans are pragmatic; we want quick, clean, simple solutions to vast problems. The paradox is that we're a deeply confessional culture, but we're not often contemplative. "

" I love the nooks and crannies of the American landscape; the back roads and back alleys, the places that are still untouched by the corporate gloss, the veneer of sameness that seems to be spreading across the country. "

" It's really hard to be a story writer - no matter how much acclaim you get - and not write a novel. "

" It's better to know your story than not to know. "

" I'm not at all interested in simply reporting what's here right now, or cranking out an entertainment device that's going to touch the widest number of people. I'm interested in digging and excavating as deep as I can go into those small eternal moments and how they expand out, or close in, on the lives of my characters. "

" As a story writer, you have work with sharp but relatively small tools, the picks of metaphor, the shovel blade of images, the trowel of point of view, and then you delicately lift and brush in the revision with love and care knowing that one slip, and you might damage an extremely delicate thing. "

" Folk songs, whatever else they might be, are mainly craft. "

" Alice Munro is an atomic writer blasting doors into narrative time. "

" The more you know about Bob Dylan, the less you know. A truly enigmatic artist, Mr. Dylan's work and life offer vaporous handholds, explanations, and instructions. Attempt to grasp them, and they will only dissipate and re-form into another contexture or idea. "

" I find the middle classes kind of boring. The middle class has kind of been beaten like a dead horse by fictional writers. It's old news, and literature is supposed to bring new news, and for me, I feel I have to go as far out as I can to try and tell the kind of stories I want to tell. "

David Means

Literature

News

" From George Martin's classically inspired production of the Beatles to Peter Gabriel's early solo masterpieces, to Stereolab's beautiful loops and blips, U.K.-based bands have often found a way to squeeze warmth and compassion from the stone-cold - especially now that the tubes are gone - machinery of the recording studio. "

" You can't take a story and just stretch it out - that does not a novel make. "

" In 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac,' Mr. Yorke's lyrics were often unfathomable, moaned and mumbled and forced beneath the surface of the music. In 'Hail to the Thief,' most but not all of the words can be decoded after a few listens. "

" I was an at-home father, taking care of them for seven years when they were babies. I was one of those new-age, at-home dads. "

" A kiss is often about the future and the past. A lost dream, about the discretion of the idealism. "

" I love novels, and I read them more than anything, but stories cut in sharp and hard and are able to reveal things in a different way: they're highly charged, a slightly newer form, and inherently more contemporary. "

David Means

Love

Hard

" I don't want to be a commentator of my own work. If you've written the story, you've said what you want to say. "

" Wars never simply end, not for those in combat and not for the culture, and one way or another, they shape-shift from generation to generation. "