193 Quotes by David Shields

I'm wonderfully self-lacerating, probably to my character's detriment. I'm terribly open to critique.

Resolution and conclusion are inherent in a plot-driven narrative.

With relatively few exceptions, the novel sacrifices too much, for me, on the altar of plot.

The novel is dead. Long live the antinovel, built from scraps.

To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

Thomas Jefferson went through the New Testament and removed all the miracles, leaving only the teachings. Take a source, extract what appeals to you, discard the rest. Such an act of editorship is bound to reflect something of the individual doing the editing: a plaster cast of an aesthetic-not the actual thing, but the imprint of it.

I'm not interested in collage as the refuge of the composition-ally disabled. I'm interested in collage as (to be honest) an evolution beyond narrative.

Everything I write, I believe instinctively, is to some extent collage. Meaning, ultimately, is a matter of adjacent data.

In my own little way, I feel like I'm part of a group of writers who care deeply about pushing the essay forward.