Richard Bausch

“Read the writers whose work is still around and has survived the winds of fashion and the attacks of the ignorant and the bigoted - read everything you can get your hands on.”

“I always write stories, and I write poems, too. I just never sell them to anybody, but I write them. They're good, too. They never leave the house. They're too disclosing.”

“The fact is, for all the critics' talk about me as a realist, I'm making everything up - everything. It is all about imagining with me.”

“Keep everything in context, and try to have each line doing more than one thing - not just giving exposition but also revealing character and history, etc.”

“Write a little bit every day, each day. Visit it, every day - in other words, show up for work.”

“Every really good book was written a little at a time, over time, in tremendous confusion and doubt.”

“I love teaching. If I made a trillion dollars, I would still teach. It's different every day. You get to meet intelligent people all the time - or at least most of the time.”

“Once, I thought I had a novel, and it turned out it was only a short story. I wrote about 800 pages, but it ended up being a short story. And if it ever happens to me again, I Will Go Insane.”

“I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel glosbal doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt.”

“In every circumstance, all my life, my mind shows me the possible bad outcome: someone walks down steps, and before I can do anything to head the image off, I see a fall, a catastrophe.”