David Means

“As a story writer, you have work with sharp but relatively small tools, the picks of metaphor, the shovel blade of images, the trowel of point of view, and then you delicately lift and brush in the revision with love and care knowing that one slip, and you might damage an extremely delicate thing.”

“I'm not sure if a writer should talk about themes. Themes arrive out of the deeper structure and concerns, but to me, the main thing is getting it down right, writing about specific characters in specific predicaments, and finding a way to be true to the story itself, not only in the first burst of draft but in the revision, too.”

“A kiss is often about the future and the past. A lost dream, about the discretion of the idealism.”

“A good folk song tells you something you already know, in a form you're already familiar with, on terms that were set down long before you were born - when the country was primarily windblown dust, open wagon trains, and dysfunctional towns like Deadwood.”

“History is delusional. Not just an illusion, it's a delusion. America is this giant country, so it has these big delusions, and history is where delusions play out.”

“Everyone in my family still lives in Kalamazoo.”

“My characters - no, make that most characters - are seeking the shelter of narrative resolution, a place of quiet and grace.”

“We believe in cures; we're a quick-fix country, and we drive forward, and we eat up what we have extremely fast in terms of natural resources and also ideas and intellectual property. We're kind of wilfully stupid a lot of the time, anti-intellectual.”

“In 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac,' Mr. Yorke's lyrics were often unfathomable, moaned and mumbled and forced beneath the surface of the music. In 'Hail to the Thief,' most but not all of the words can be decoded after a few listens.”

“I write first drafts by hand, often out of the house somewhere, and then, when I've got a draft, type it up and let it sit, sometimes for a long time, and then when I'm ready, I work on revision.”

“Wars never simply end, not for those in combat and not for the culture, and one way or another, they shape-shift from generation to generation.”

“We're all building our narratives in our heads.”

“I find the middle classes kind of boring. The middle class has kind of been beaten like a dead horse by fictional writers. It's old news, and literature is supposed to bring new news, and for me, I feel I have to go as far out as I can to try and tell the kind of stories I want to tell.”

“Those who see beauty almost too intensely can easily look mad to those who are functioning within the confines of so-called normal life.”

“Undergraduate writers seem to be, in a way, more open to letting themselves just write.”