96 Quotes by Darin Strauss

I consider myself a Jewish writer - even if my characters frequently are not Jewish - in the same way, I guess, that I consider myself a Jewish man, even though I don't often attend shul.

For the fiction students I teach, one of the most common mistakes is to start in the wrong place. Often the actual story doesn't begin until about a third of the way into their narratives. They start off instead with excessive scene-setting, metaphysical speculation, introducing nonessential dramatis personae, throat-clearing, etc.

You can work really hard and well on something, and someone you respect might hate it; worse, they're not empirically wrong for doing so. This is scary, especially for people who haven't been published.

The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on giant bugs.

A good writer knows that if her style and perceptions are really cooking, she can bring anything off. It's okay, of course, for novelists to depict bland, average families living bland, average lives in bland, average towns. But it isn't okay when those novelists don't outshine their bland, average subjects.

Things don’t go away. They become you.

The sky had dropped a curtain on the sun.

A tragedy’s first act is crowded with supporting players: witnesses crimping their faces, policemen scribbling in pads and making radio calls, EMS guys unfolding equipment, tubes and wheels.

By now, the camouflage had become my skin. My friends wouldn’t want to know. Who would want to know? I certainly didn’t want to know. All I wanted was to hold my assumptions to the light, and to watch them sparkle in their facets, as all sham gemstones do.