193 Quotes by David Shields

Straightforward fiction functions only as more Bubble Wrap, nostalgia, retreat.

Art, like science, progresses, and to me it's bizarre that a lot of acclaimed and popular and respectable books are not advancing the art form.

I disagree with everything John Updike has ever said.

I'm not super-polite or civil - I try to be civil, but I'm not into Seattle's niceties, and I'm not hugely wired into Seattle's natural beauty.

I really love that idea of the essay as an investigation. That's all anyone's life is.

I am truly bored with 99 per cent of conventional novels. I do think it's a somewhat desiccated form.

I am interested in work that jumps boundaries, and that makes trouble. Part of me is comfortable with that: with being a bit of a troublemaker.

Nothing really changes: the individual's ability to project his message or throw his weight around remains minuscule.

The American writer has his hands full, trying to understand and then describe and then make credible much of American reality.