106 Quotes by Tobias Wolff

I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into.

Of course it's why you want to become a writer - because you have the liberty to do that, but once you have the liberty you also have the obligation to do it.

That, for me, is a very important test of a young writer's commitment because most of them are going to have to continue doing that when they've finished the program.

So you're continually searching for new ways of using the story form to most perfectly contain and express the story you're telling.

A novel invites digression and a little relaxation of the grip because a reader can't endure being held that tightly in hand for so long a time.

I'm very conscious of working from memory but I also know that someone else who was there at the same moment would write something different about it.

I have to be honest, of course, but I have to be sure that my honesty comes in a form that is not destructive because it can very easily become so.

The human heart is a dark forest.

You have to be kind of clued into them, they are a world of their own, and most people find them disappointing because the best short stories are not constructed like novels.