Mary Kay Zuravleff famous quotes

Dylan Landis knows how to unnerve a reader, even as she's appreciating being unnerved. Rainey Royal thrums with sex and power. A brave, exquisite book.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Sex #Book #Appreciate

In a family, you take on each other's problems and joys differently, and more intensely. The amplitude - and the undulation of the family - is different from the people you just generally bump into on the street, because you're chained together. And what happens if you break that chain? In almost every family that I know, someone has escaped, set themselves free, tried to run away - whatever what you want to call it. And often, they are made more conspicuous by their absence.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Running #People #Joy

I tried the line out on some people on the street, like, "What do you think of this: 'the art of family life is to not take it personally'?" And they would laugh. But you know, everybody's got something going on in their families, and then once you have kids, that of course exponentially rises.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Art #Kids #Thinking

The DNA of the novel - which, if I begin to write nonfiction, I will write about this - is that: the title of the novel is the whole novel. The first line of the novel is the whole novel. The point of view is the whole novel. Every subplot is the whole novel. The verb tense is the whole novel.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Writing #Dna #Views

Now, as a reader, you shouldn't feel the decisions the writer makes about this DNA, or it would be boring beyond belief. But, as a writer, you're struggling to make these decisions. What should the title be? What's the first line? The point of view? And the struggle with the decisions is because you're trying to figure out WHAT IS THE NOVEL, WHAT IS THE NOVEL?
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Struggle #Dna #Views

I realized early on in writing the book that it needed to be from a family point of view, and that nobody outside the family would weigh in. And then well into writing it, the question became how to balance the perspectives; how to switch between chapters.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Book #Writing #Views

In fictional families - in sitcoms, in dramas - the members are sharing huge amounts of their interior lives. And that has not been my real-life experience. In fictional families - in sitcoms, in dramas - the members are sharing huge amounts of their interior lives. And that has not been my real-life experience.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Real #Drama #Life Experience

Math-thinking, I would say, encourages flipping and substituting letters in words (in the novel, one of the boys double-majors in math and myth, for example, and his twin cracks a joke about the father's handwriting that morphs "cacography" into "dadography").
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Father #Math #Boys

I can be really silly when I'm not actually writing silliness, and I have to rein that in. Pynchon, in my opinion, sometimes tells elaborate shaggy dog stories just to work up to a pun or punch line. My challenge is to use humor and wordplay to reinforce the emotional core of the novel.
-- Mary Kay Zuravleff

#Dog #Silly #Writing

If you don't have sex and you don't do drugs, your rock 'n' roll better be awfully good.

Accept every blind date you can get, even with a girl who wears jeans. Maybe you can talk her out of them.

Our stock in trade is raw, flailing sex.

One has to ascertain the right path for his activities by following in the footsteps of great saintly persons and books of knowledge under the guidance of a spiritual master.

Books are the basis; purity is the force; preaching is the essence; utility is the principle.

Nature is a book of many pages and each page tells a fascinating story to him who learns her language. Our fertile valleys and craggy mountains recite an epic poem of geologic conflicts. The starry sky reveal gigantic suns and space and time without end.

The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity...

As life tends to become more and more distracting, let us firmly hold on to books.

My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it'll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It's like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.

I didn't realize at the moment exactly what I had done...I only realized the enormity of it when I walked into the press room and got a long standing ovation.It wasn't until I came out of my daze that I began to appreciate my accomplishment.