I had never really felt settled in Brooklyn. I think it had to do with growing up in New Jersey and being someone who her whole life wanted to live in the city, and the city meant Manhattan. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Writers are outsiders. Even when we seem like insiders, we’re outsiders. We have to be. Our noses pressed to the glass, we notice everything. We mull and interpret. We store away clues, details that may be useful to us later. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Devotion, as it relates to the title of my memoir, means fidelity – as in fidelity to a person or a practice. I think it’s certainly possible to feel devotion without having faith, at least in the religious sense of the word. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Strange – I’m not much of a film person. I love watching films, but they don’t stay with me the way books do. Stranger still, because my husband is a screenwriter! Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Sometimes when I’m at my desk, I’ll realize that I have contorted myself completely, and I haven’t moved for hours, and that my legs have fallen asleep. I am elsewhere, not in my body, not in the room, not in my house. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Sometimes, I’m driving along in my car, and a song from my high-school years comes on the radio: Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road.’ Just the opening few chords make me want to roll down the window and let the wind blow back my hair. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I’m not really a short story writer, nor do I tend to gravitate to them as a reader. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
My desk is covered with talismans: pieces of rose quartz, wishing stones from a favorite beach. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page – but rather, will assume that she’s getting it right without the struggle. Dani Shapiro Read Quote
