I work a lot in the summers. My family goes to Maine, where we have a little house. My wife's a writer,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
Teaching is all armchair. I learn about writing by writing and thinking about what I've written and throwing it away. — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
Slamming the book shut produces a wind on the face, a weather that is copyrighted by the author, and this wind may… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
To me one of the amazing technologies of writing is the way it can listen in on thoughts. I don't feel that… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
I always, at least back then, struggled with emotion in writing. I felt like I could do odd, unusual things, but there… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
People are considered as areas that resist light, mistakes in the air, collision sweet spots. At the time of this writing, the… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“The simple answer is that I have changed my techniques in order to avoid the relentless sameness of my material, but I… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“What I find difficult, when I read, is to encounter other people’s achievements passed off as one’s own. I find it difficult… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“..., and he told a story once after intercourse, to the person who had just politely hoisted him while he hyperventilated in their space… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“Terms BEN MARCUS, THE 1. False map, scroll, caul, or parchment. It is comprised of the first skin. In ancient times, it hung from… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“Loud people have thin, hollow bones. They can be broken in half and discarded into a pit. They snap as easily as children do,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O'Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard. — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“This first. To understand this. Then maybe." Julian was impressed. The doctor had devised a pretty good tombstone. This first. To understand this. Then… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“Who is setting the bar for what you call accessibility? The definition of “accessible” is “easy to understand,” and so much of the fiction… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“People are considered as areas that resist light, mistakes in the air, collision sweet spots.” — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“The true elitists in the literary world are the ones who have become annoyed by literary ambition in any form, who have converted the… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“Together we were something less, which felt like such a relief, to not be ourselves for a while.” — Ben Marcus Copy Share
“I prefer men who don't fall down and weep, who absorb a blow, who do not scamper and yell when chased, but stand firm,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of… — Ben Marcus Copy Share
