“The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.” — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story. — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
Actually, my first literary heroes were the Romantic poets, so I began to get serious by writing poems. I have notebooks full… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
I write with a fountain pen. And then revise word by word and line by line so that the first draft of… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done. — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
It's easier to write about a place sometimes when you've left it, when you can apply your imagination to your memory and… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
Writing a story, you understand, is not done by consensus. But we do learn from each other, and we remind ourselves how… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
I sat around the kitchen every Sunday afternoon listening to my mother and aunts talk about the people in the neighborhood. Gossip… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
Revision is not the end of the creative process, but a new beginning. It's a chance not just to clean up and… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
You will feel discouraged; you will lose confidence in your abilities; you will be bored with the characters–and the only way to… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
What you create when you're teaching fiction writing is a kind of literary salon, not a social club or a mutual admiration… — John Dufresne Copy Share Image
You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even… — John Dufresne Copy Share
“At 9:15 on Thursday morning, June 4, while Jordan Delreese was bludgeoning his two young children to death, I was sitting in Dr. Hamburger's… — John Dufresne Copy Share
You will feel discouraged; you will lose confidence in your abilities; you will be bored with the characters–and the only way to overcome these… — John Dufresne Copy Share
There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves. — John Dufresne Copy Share
If you think about it, fiction is nothing more than gossip about the people you've made up. — John Dufresne Copy Share
“I loved her for what I couldn't understand about her. Love searches for the mystery in the beloved, seeks the unknowable.” — John Dufresne Copy Share
“I told her how I thought you could always revise your life, how you could work and work on it, finesse the details, see… — John Dufresne Copy Share
I write with a fountain pen. And then revise word by word and line by line so that the first draft of a scene… — John Dufresne Copy Share
With each draft, the work gets better, and usually that means tighter. It means getting the precise word, not the approximate word. — John Dufresne Copy Share
Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done. — John Dufresne Copy Share
In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations… — John Dufresne Copy Share
