Virginia Woolf came along in the early part of the century and essentially said through her writing, yes, big books can be written about the traditional big subjects. There is war. There is the search for God. These are all very important things. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
Virginia Woolf’s great novel, ‘Mrs. Dalloway,’ is the first great book I ever read. I read it almost by accident when I was in high school, when I was 15 years old. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I’ve finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English language until it starts to behave in some way that vaguely matches my intentions. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
You have started the book with this bubble over your head that contains a cathedral full of fire – that contains a novel so vast and great and penetrating and bright and dark that it will put all other novels ever written to shame. And then, as you get towards the end, you begin to realise, no, it’s just this book. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
If you’ve really loved a book, or a movie for that matter, really loved it, what you want is that same book again, but as if you’ve never read it. And when you get something unfamiliar, you feel betrayed. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
Before there was any talk of a movie, people would sometimes ask me what actors I would imagine playing these characters. And the only thing I could ever say is: I have such a clear idea of these characters that they’d have to play themselves. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
The only difference was one of them was trying to make a perfect cake and one of them was trying to write a great book. But if we remove that from the equation, it’s the same impulse and they are equally entitled to their ecstasies and their despair. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
