David Hajdu
"The smaller people, the smaller voices, are lost to history. But they are important as counterpoint and frequently important in their own right."
Author Interviews
Interviews with writers.
Elizabeth Cox
"There is no right or wrong way — just a way of noticing the way things happen in the world that is natural and organic. Plot can come pretty easily out of this exercise."
Jim Crace
"What always has interested me is the way that books are different from the writers. When I write a book I always look for that moment where the book abandons me and starts to express a view of its own."
James Ellroy
"I never specifically answer what's real and what's not in my books. I think that my vision is true to the moral thrust and the psychological thrust of history."
Nicholson Baker
"Part of the reason a worthless book is worth retaining is that its worthlessness means something."
Anthony Giardina
"I think there is something about the fixedness of male sexuality that is comforting to us. Or the alleged fixedness."
Susan Orlean
"I like the mental puzzle involved with dealing with a real situation rather than one that you can just arbitrarily choose to change. And frankly I like the social mission of writing non-fiction."
Howard Zinn
"It's always amazing to me how people live in a city and don't know the history of that city. I've been to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and I would bring up the textile strike of 1912 and nobody would know about it."
Alan Furst
"I am not in the business of making people feel bad. I'm in the business of telling people how it might possibly turn out, that in this situation love conquers all."
Julian Barnes, Etc.
"When we talk about a novel provoking emotions, we tend to think of the emotions that have to do with our own amatory life. I think that books can be emotionally exciting in many different ways."