107 Quotes by Ethan Canin

Does one grow wise in increments? By fractioning a life and then summing it? By stacking sand? An infant, in his first sleepiness, must let go of the world; a man must learn to die. What comes between are the grains of sand. Ambition. Loss. Envy. Desire. Hatred. Love. Tenderness. Joy. Shame. Loneliness. Ecstasy. Ache. Surrender. Live long enough and you will solve them all.

In people like us, the craving is as strong as the craving for food or water, the yearning for touch or light or love. I was looking for something – a diversion, an occupation, an unwavering force – that would elevate me, that would lift me out of the melancholy dissection of my own interior geography that otherwise would have consumed me pitilessly, as it had my father. I wanted to fly above myself – if only for a few hours – and look down in tranquility upon my life.

I think fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition.

People punch up,” he said. “They punch the ones who are better than them. Nobody likes a kid who does something well. That.

I don't think there is such a thing as pure imagination. I think it's a combination of memory and invention.

I like to write about the moment of light in the hour of darkness.

You don't idea your way into a plot but plot your way into an idea.

Medicine involves dealing with people who are going through changes and cycles, often people trapped in bodies that are going out from under them. Spending time with them lets you think their way, gives you insights as a writer.

I really enjoy the immediacy of the 'knife and gun clubs,' as they're so callously called. Emergency is a great place to learn about people.