Writers like to feel sorry for themselves, which is easy to do in private, but when called on to feel sorry for ourselves in social situations, we will often do so by sharing terrible book tour stories. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
That’s always the most productive research – research into tone, into voice. Facts are nice, too, but facts are more raw material than creative inspiration. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
If you look at the practice of ‘crisis management,’ and maybe squint at it a little, you can make out in the corners of your vision the ghosts or the vestiges of a much older, but still thoroughly American, form of public life, one centered not on public opinion but on religion. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
I’m not interested in current events per se, but I am interested in how certain aspects of social or public life that might seem ultra-contemporary actually take their place in a long American continuum. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
It’s nice to have something else going on when a book comes out so you’re not just sitting by the phone, waiting for things to happen. You don’t want to be the guy Googling himself all day. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
When I’m composing a scene for the first time, I try to imitate my character. The less critical distance the better – particularly when they’re acting badly. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
The first draft often is really fast, and I’d be terribly ashamed if anybody ever saw it. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
When I read a book I liked, I would get a pen and one of my father’s legal pads and rewrite it from memory as if I had thought of it myself. It was a clear sign that I wanted to be involved in writing, even if it was just pretend at that point. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
John Dos Passos, Raymond Carver, Flaubert and William Maxwell were all very influential when I first started writing. Now, the writers I’m most interested in are the writers who are most unlike me: for example, Denis Johnson. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything – I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it’s like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that’s what they were doing; it’s like a message from another culture. Jonathan Dee Read Quote
