Francine Prose

“For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what's superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially, cut, is essential. It's satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, economical, sharp.”

“A neighbor once told me he had trouble with García Márquez’s novel because he likes to drink while he reads, and 'The Autumn of the Patriarch' gave him no space in which to take a sip of his beer.”

“Reading Chekhov, I felt not happy, exactly, but as close to happiness as I knew I was likely to come. And it occurred to me that this was the pleasure and mystery of reading, as well as the answer to those who say that books will disappear. For now, books are still the best way of taking great art and its consolations along with us on a bus.”

“If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in.”

“A work of art can start you thinking about some aesthetic or philosophical problem; it can suggest some new method, some fresh approach to fiction.”

“[Referring to passage by Alice Munro] Finally, the passage contradicts a form of bad advice often given young writers -- namely, that the job of the author is to show, not tell. Needless to say, many great novelists combine "dramatic" showing with long sections of the flat-out authorial narration that is, I guess, what is meant by telling. And the warning against telling leads to a confusion that causes novice writers to think that everything should be acted out -- don't tell us a character is happy, show us how she screams "yay" and jumps up and down for joy -- when in fact the responsibility of showing should be assumed by the energetic and specific use of language.”

“I work really long days and I work seven day weeks.”

“I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.”

“A lot of girls who turn into something remarkable start off as irrepressible, confident and a handful.”

“I think poets are much more dramatic, more theatrical than fiction writers.”

“She emerges from the station directly across from the restaurant. And she's right on time. Like magic, Sonya thinks, briefly saddened to realize that this is what magic means now: not being late, not getting lost on the subway. Whatever happened to the fairy godmothers, to all those bunnies yanked out of hats?”

“But love is strange, as they used to say at the Chameleon Club. Even those of us who value intelligence over appearance have discovered, to our chagrin, that a high IQ doesn't necessarily translate into kindness or even conscience.”

“I'm in a rage all of the time.”

“I waited for dawn, but only because I had forgotten how hard mornings were. For a second I'd be normal. Then came the dim awareness of something off, out of place. Then the truth came crashing down and that was it for the rest of the day. Sunlight was reproof. Shouldn't I feel better than I had in the dead of night.”

“Fact-checking is so boring compared to writing fiction.”

“Of course, I've always read. I started when I was four years old and just didn't stop. I read all the time.”

“I remember, when I was a little kid, I was good at sports, and I could jump off the high board. And then puberty hit, and suddenly I was looking to boys for direction. I remember that as a great loss.”

“I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.”

“I wrote about four novels before I wrote a word of journalism.”

“Throughout her life, she behaved as if she had never heard anyone suggest that a woman couldn't do entirely as she pleased.”