I have to say that movies have as much impact on me as music. And that I learned as much about narrative from movies as I did from reading novels, how to arrange stories, how to juxtapose things. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
People think it’s suspect and self-indulgent to make art, and I don’t think that’s true. Some people think you should be busy making something that you can sell in the marketplace, and if nobody wants to buy it, it must be crap. And that’s not true. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
Memory is not particularly linear – it is associative, repetitive, subjective and porous. But the writer needs to convey disorder and dysfunction without making the novel itself disorderly or dysfunctional. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
Yes, I did try acting when I was in high school and I was terrible at it. So I definitely have had the experience of being bad at artistic endeavor. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
I think it’s harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, ‘I’m just going to devote my life to making art,’ or ‘I’m going to devote my life to writing novels.’ You end up with no resources. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
Although a great restaurant experience must include great food, a bad restaurant experience can be achieved through bad service alone. Ideally, service is invisible. You notice it only when something goes wrong. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
I locate a great deal of the power of Occupy Wall Street in the name itself, ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ or ‘#OccupyWallStreet.’ It works because the name contains everything you need to know: the tactic and the target. The name is also modular. You can create your own offshoot in your own city. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
All roads lead to Wall Street, but we feel the effects of Wall Street on every street corner. Certainly in Syracuse, N.Y., where I live. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
I don’t have a lot of skills, but one thing I can do is, I can compartmentalize. I can make that a little world that I can go back to, so I can be a waitress, or I can be a teacher, and then go and work on my book. Dana Spiotta Read Quote
