"I wrote Her First American and I always say it took me eighteen years. It took me that long was because after about five years I stopped and wrote Lucinella. I got stuck; it was too hard to write. Lucinella felt like a lark. I wanted to write about the literary circle because it amused me, and I allowed myself to do what I wanted to do. It's just one of the things I'm allowed to do if I feel like it."

-- Lore Segal

#Writing Quotes #Long Quotes #Stuck Quotes

“When I got out of my Twenties I stopped playing women that were victims. I like playing women who are strong and have a piece of mind.”
“Looking back on the long-stretched-out body of one's work, it is interesting to mark the endless duel fought within a man between the emotional and critical sides of his nature, first one, then the other, getting the upper hand, and too seldom fusing till the result has the mellowness of full achievement. One can even tell the nature of one's readers, by their preference for the work which reveals more of this side than of that.”
“You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Paty, which is collective and immortal.”
“Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.”
“So sweet and delicious do I become, when I am in bed with a man who, I sense, loves and enjoys me, that the pleasure I bring excels all delight, so the knot of love, however tight it seemed before, is tied tighter still.”

Source : Veronica Franco (2007). “Poems and Selected Letters”, p.69, University of Chicago Press
“A true storyteller is really good at writing himself into a corner and then finding a way out of that corner”
“Don't let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action.”
“Before I was even in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. Rumor was that I was a junkie. I have dark circles under my eyes, deal with it.”

You may also like:

Cynthia Ozick
Writer
Grace Paley
Writer
Jennifer Egan
Novelist
Julie Orringer
Writer
Lynne Tillman
Novelist
Matthew Sharpe
Novelist
Maurice Sendak
Illustrator
Michelle Herman
Writer
Randall Jarrell
Poet