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" There's no safety in anything, but in the arts, there is really this idea of no promises. I didn't follow the writing dream for safety. "
Nathan Englander
Safety
Dream
Follow
Related Quotes:
" The reason people get afraid of writing real, honest journalism and fiction, and the reason corrupted people and demagogues are afraid of journalism and fiction and poetry across the world, is because it is a subversive form. "
Nathan Englander
Poetry
Honest
Writing
" I think in circles; I speak in circles. I unravel my thoughts that way. "
Nathan Englander
Way
Think
Circles
" Palestine isn't a state when it concerns statehood. When it comes to warring, it's a state, yes? The Palestinians, they live in a country, for the purpose of war. "
Nathan Englander
Yes
Live
State
" So many people discuss, you know, Israel/Palestine as if it's people on a spectrum. "
Nathan Englander
Many
Spectrum
People
" I didn't sleep the night I finished 'Sister Hills.' It was so unsettling. I felt really wild. I didn't have a clue. It's a very loaded subject, and I did not know what I had. I was interested in watching how choices unfold over time. It's a story that's raising questions. "
Nathan Englander
Night
Sister
Choices
" I love those books and movies where someone turns because they're blackmailed or they're passed over for promotion. "
Nathan Englander
Love
Over
Promotion
" For a book to function... it has to be a functioning reality. The character has to be real, and I imagine that's exactly what happens for a spy who is in deep cover. "
Nathan Englander
Character
Book
Real
" When I wrote my novel, 'The Ministry of Special Cases,' I couldn't even brush my teeth. I had to write in isolation from everything else. I thought a play would take away from my fiction, but the more projects I work on, the more time I have. "
Nathan Englander
Work
Isolation
Special
" Twitter is the best art for writers. I find it enticing. "
Nathan Englander
Enticing
Art
Find
" Everything is so much clearer once a world is framed. Maybe it sounds crazy, but with writing, it's infinity that is limiting and the limited that allows for the truly infinite. Once all those elements are in place in a story, the brain is truly freed up to imagine without end. "
Nathan Englander
Crazy
Story
End
" I lived in Jerusalem with the Temple Mount as my holy site. My Palestinian neighbors lived in Al-Quds with the Haram al-Sharif. "
Nathan Englander
Jerusalem
Lived
Neighbors
" What I'm trying to say is that a lot that lies behind being able to live the writing life is psychological and wrapped up in ideas of self-definition. "
Nathan Englander
Life
Trying
Ideas
" Every book is vulnerable, and every book is nerve-wracking, but I've never been both so excited and terrified to have a book coming into the world. It's an expressly loaded subject, one on which you can't win. "
Nathan Englander
Win
Never
Excited
" Every nation should wrestle with the question of what it means to defend itself, what it means to take revenge. "
Nathan Englander
Revenge
Take
Defend
" So writing stories is not easier in comparison to the playwriting or translation; the stories are easier in league with them. "
Nathan Englander
Writing
Easier
Comparison
" I don't think it's the writer's job to give answers or to give opinions. In fact, when a writer has answers, I think the work ends up being corrupted. It becomes didactic. What a book does is share a consciousness and invite people to explore the questions as best as you can. "
Nathan Englander
Job
Best
Work
" I feel very lucky that I have this career that allows me to say, 'I'm ready to start now on this project,' and I can go and do it. "
Nathan Englander
I Can
Start
Career
" I'd chosen to dedicate my life to writing, and I asked myself, 'if you write your whole life, and nobody ever sees a word, is it as a writer that you die?' "
Nathan Englander
Die
You
My Life
" I was resistant to the Internet. I was afraid of it. "
Nathan Englander
Afraid
Resistant
Internet
" I moved to New York because I thrive there. "
Nathan Englander
New
York
Thrive
" When you're in a world, and your parents are one way, and you're told, 'This is how the whole world is, and this is how you're supposed to be,' and you're terribly unhappy in that world, it's a very scary thing. "
Nathan Englander
You
Way
World
" I think my love for rhythm in language comes from repeating the same words, the same sounds, over and over again day after day for so many years. "
Nathan Englander
Language
Love
Over
" My mother raised me very clearly that if you cross the street, you will die. If you go outside, you will die. If you play sports, you will likely die. That's what I was getting at home. "
Nathan Englander
Sports
You
Die
" Philip Roth has been a huge influence on me. The early books I read in my teens and twenties. "
Nathan Englander
Early
Influence
Me
" I wrote a novel, so now they can call me a novelist. I tell stories; that's it. "
Nathan Englander
Call
Me
Now
" There's no such thing as being a cultural Jew. You're religious or you're not. "
Nathan Englander
Cultural
You
Being
" I always call myself either an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist - I'm not sure which way it goes. "
Nathan Englander
Optimist
Myself
Pessimist
" You spend so much time as a writer telling straight and linear stories. "
Nathan Englander
Stories
Time
You
" I understand if everyone looking at me is seeing a Jew and seeing me as a kind of 'other.' But I can't be expected to see myself that way. That is, to me, Jewish is the normal way to be; it's not a type of being. "
Nathan Englander
Seeing
Looking
Me
" I'm just very interested, fascinated, heartbroken, obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and our need to find peace on that front... Everyone's always, like, victim and avenger at the same time. "
Nathan Englander
Find
Need
Peace