193 Quotes by David Shields

Let us hope the time will come when language is most efficiently used where it is being most efficiently misused.

I take literature as a really serious human activity. It’s not just a playful thing. It can be hilarious and wonderful and performative, but I think it’s really serious.

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

Candor is key – being willing to say what no one else is willing to say.

Every page is a bent version of reality – too unsophisticated to be art but too self-conscious to be mere reportage.

I wanted literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn’t lie about this – which is wha makes it essential.

I’m not interested in myself per se. I’m interested in myself as theme carrier, as host.

Every work, no matter how short or antilinear, needs momentum;.

You’re one of 6.5 billion people now on the planet, and 99.9 percent of your genes are the same as everyone else’s.