Lucas Mann famous quotes

There is something more important than the place being left. It's that swell of crushing emptiness that makes the insignificant seem anything but.
-- Lucas Mann

#Crush #Important #Emptiness

That idea of not being exactly who you write as is so crucial. Even looking at those words as I type them, it feels dirty, it feels like I'm admitting something. Unfortunately, I think that's how the conversation around nonfiction is so much of the time - either defensive or accusatory. Aha! You've been caught! But the original essence of something is always lost when it's reproduced.
-- Lucas Mann

#Dirty #Writing #Thinking

Walter Benjamin talks about art losing its original "aura" in an age of mechanical reproduction. In writing memoir, we're taking something that happened in a particular moment and meant something at that time, and we're trying to capture it to mass reproduce it for readers. So of course something is lost. And when we edit that material, we're getting even further from that aura, but toward something else that is potentially vital.
-- Lucas Mann

#Art #Writing #Age

I came to nonfiction through journalism. My first book was journalism, and it was so frustrating to me, while I was writing it, that I wasn't capturing the moments the way they were when I lived them; I was filtering and re-filtering. I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn't and shouldn't claim authenticity. Then, when the book was published and I gave readings, I'd hear myself read and it was like I was eavesdropping on a dream - even with myself as the narrator. I knew that guy but couldn't exactly recognize him.
-- Lucas Mann

#Dream #Reading #Book

Lately I've been thinking about the idea that all novels are, at least in some way, about the process of writing a novel - that the construction of the book and the lineage of people constructing novels are always part of the story the author is telling. I think the equivalent for memoir should be that all memoirs are, in some way, about the process of memory. Memoirs are made out of a confusing, flawed act of creation.
-- Lucas Mann

#Memories #Book #Writing

For better or worse, I seem to gravitate toward writing about something or someone else, then have my own self shove its way into that story. It seems insanely narcissistic. But I also think there's a particular effect that comes from using my autobiography in service to another story, as opposed to being the subject. I'm much more comfortable working in that mode. And I do think I have a persona or mood that I keep coming back to: self-conscious, self-critical, unsure. I write a lot about bodies, particularly male ones, usually as a point of emphasis for my insecurities about my own.
-- Lucas Mann

#Writing #Thinking #Insecurity

After writing anything, there's always that postpartum feeling of, "What do I do now?" - I think particularly for nonfiction writers. I feel myself pulled back to the same themes, sometimes even the same moments, and I'm not sure that I want that.
-- Lucas Mann

#Writing #Thinking #Feelings

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want—not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. But happiness likewise, in its way, is without reason, since it is inevitable.

What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.

In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts.

You can crush the flowers, but you can't stop the spring.

Jessica Alba. I have the biggest crush on her, I can't even tell you. I met her in Vancouver when she was filming 'Good Luck Chuck.

When I talk to some of the younger filmmakers, they are so worried about their films that, eventually, this state of being worried reflects itself in and helps the final work. Whereas, with projects that are meticulously planned, you look at the end result and it is full of emptiness.

When emptiness is still, that is eternity. When it moves, that is love.

How loud clocks can tick when a room is empty, and one is alone!

Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.