I know, speaking for myself, no matter what I’m able to do, no matter what book comes out and ends up on paper, I always had something bigger and grander in my head. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
I just don’t feel much interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
As any student of literature knows, the books that last are often not the books that are most popular when they are written. Both ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’ were complete failures, critically and commercially, when they first appeared. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and, yes, read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down, but it’s differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if he’s any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
Like my hero Virginia Woolf, I do lack confidence. I always find that the novel I’m finishing, even if it’s turned out fairly well, is not the novel I had in my mind. I think a lot of writers must negotiate this, and if they don’t admit it, they’re not being honest. Michael Cunningham Read Quote
