Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Novels often thin themselves out to a watery hue - some even start that way - and at times seem to only ride along the surface of things, giving us what we already know, reporting the news that is just news. "

David Means

Know

Ride

News

Related Quotes:

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

" What I appreciate about Radiohead's work - and it's most evident in 'Hail to the Thief' - is how the juxtaposition of narratives on the band's albums somehow creates a sense of wholeness. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 think most short story writers, at one time or another, over the course of several books, naturally skirt near the edge of one genre or another. "

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

David Means

Way

Just

" 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. "

" I write first drafts by hand, often out of the house somewhere, and then, when I've got a draft, type it up and let it sit, sometimes for a long time, and then when I'm ready, I work on revision. "

" Everyone in my family still lives in Kalamazoo. "

" I think all good short stories are about what it means to tell a good story. "

" There is this idea of 'north,' and if you're from Michigan and you wandered the Upper Peninsula, you know what it feels like. The sky has a particular vibe, a coldness, stretching into the upper reaches of Canada. "

David Means

Sky

You

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

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

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

" 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. "

" Every interaction with another person involves a dance of expectation, even when you're just passing someone in the street. Inside those moments - however brief they may be - there is a kind of anticipatory silence. "

" Iggy Pop is a pure Michigan product - gritty, smart, but not afraid of looking stupid or foolish. His father was once a high school English teacher. I love Iggy as a physical entity, sinewy, twisty - even in old age - an embodiment of rock and roll history. "

" You don't know what you need when you're a young writer. You can get small slivers of critical input, advice, comments, but if you're deep in the perplexity of your own process, as you should be, sorting it out in your own way, nothing is going to guide you more than small gestures of encouragement. "

" A good folk song tells you something you already know, in a form you're already familiar with, on terms that were set down long before you were born - when the country was primarily windblown dust, open wagon trains, and dysfunctional towns like Deadwood. "

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

" 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. "

" Vietnam and Iraq are part of the same national trauma and delusion; we folded the war up when Reagan became president and unpacked it with Bush. "

David Means

Vietnam

Trauma

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

" The short story is kind of a precision tool. It allows me a certain type of freedom to go in and out of the American landscape, without having to commit myself to a full-length novel. I find a lot of novels out there very boring. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

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