106 Quotes by Tobias Wolff

You don’t teach information in a writing workshop.

Anders turns and looks at him. He wants to hear Coyle’s cousin repeat what he’s just said, but he knows better than to ask. The others will think he’s being a jerk, ragging the kid for his grammar. But that isn’t it, not at all-it’s that Anders is strangely roused, elated, by those final two words, their pure unexpectedness and their music. He takes the field in a trance, repeating them to himself.

Storytelling is an escape from the jail of the self, leading to the ultimate adventure – seeing life through the eyes of another.

It’s probably why I’m a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.

I had never seen such sorrow; it appalled me. And I was even more appalled by her attempts to overcome it, because they so plainly, pathetically failed and in failing opened up a view of the world I had only begun to suspect, where wounds did not heal, and things did not work out for the best.

I was giving up – being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.

Whatever people gave you from their overflowing hearts they remembered, and expected you to remember, forever.

You boys know what tropism is, it’s what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don’t have to chase down a fly to get rid of it – you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can’t dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home.

When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves – never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than a common murderer, who at least cuts your throat himself, without persuading YOU to do it.