David Bergen

“You are only as good as your last book, and so there has to be a book.”

“Books in general are great, but I'm a fiction lover, and I will continue to do it.”

“I think a construction project for me is like writing a novel. I can't do the project unless I can envision sort of the whole structure and see what the end result might be.”

“What fascinates me as a writer is the stuff underneath, To me, what drives a novel is the curiosity behind the character and the depths that you want to find in that character.”

“A mentor, a 'teacher,' is like an editor. I absolutely value my editor, who is my teacher.”

“I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.”

“Failure is essential. Trial and error is necessary.”

“I may not have written the stories that I've written if I hadn't ended up in Niverville. I don't know; I don't know. How can you know?”

“Hope had finally learned to live in the present. Often, when she found herself in a space of tremendous comfort, usually out in nature, or when her children were safe all around her and on the verge of going to bed, she forced herself to take stock. Here you are, Hope, she told herself. What a beautiful moment. You may never again be here at this spot, enjoying the calm. This habit of hers, to acknowledge the immediate and elusive joy of the present, kept her sane.”

“I like characters who are contradictory.”

“In 1970, at the age of 14, I entered a short story contest offering a grand prize of one dollar. I won. This was my first foray into writing fiction. I loved reading and thought that it shouldn't be so hard to write a story.”

“As a writer, I'm always aware of the fact that there are so many books out there.”

“Words mean nothing. They are like the husks of the coffee Bean. They cover what is essential, which is the bean itself, and when the husks are discarded, they lie on the road and rot and disappear. Actions are what lie inside, like the bean.”

“In my brief writing life, it means I am still lucky that I have at least one more novel to complete. I do not expect that a story will arrive just because it is time to write another novel. It doesn't happen that way.”

“The first accepted piece of writing is the most exciting. No other publishing experience matches it. Perhaps jaundice sets in, or expectations are raised, or one starts to think that one is better than is the truth.”