31 Quotes by Peter Orner

For we are like olives: only when we are crushed do we yield what is best in us.

I’ve spent so many years living in one place and imaging another.

I beat a story to within an inch of its life – that’s when I know its done. Not before, not after.

But this is exactly why I read – and don’t belong to a book group – because reading is the most individual thing there is. Why collectivize it? Didn’t we have enough bad English teachers in school? Crowd sourcing and literature shouldn’t mix.

I think what I’m after, a lot of the time, is just honesty. What accounts for the fact that the stories we tell ourselves – the story we carry around and think of most often – are the dark ones? Maybe we have to wander around in the darkness to understand it?

My characters tend to be people who are looking back on a life lived, their joys, their regrets.

I revise and revise and revise. I’m not even sure “revise” is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it’s done.

If a novel or a story works, you don’t stop thinking about it; it doesn’t truly end.

I’ve spent a lot of time in prisons, first doing legal work and later, teaching.