Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
As a reader myself, which precedes my being a writer, of course, I read in order to enter another world. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Any writer knows that what's left out is as essential, if not more so, than what's there. Unlearning works that way. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think many writers really believe that being published is a traumatic experience. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
The literary world is more time-traveling than the art world, and novelty is much more important in art than it is in… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think it's very hard to reconcile oneself to the notion that it may not matter what you think if you still… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
In a practical sense, pain kept me from sitting down as much, so that sometimes I would have to stand to write.… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
You have to create the space for the possibility of people speaking as they do. If writing is supposed to lead us… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I'm bothered, as a reader, when I feel the writer is filling in too much. Again, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, I… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
You have to create the space for the possibility of people speaking as they do. If writing is supposed to lead us… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I would never want to write a character who was not thoroughly herself or himself. She's a very specific creature in my… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Whatever the style is, I want to have a sense that the writer is thinking, and really trying to get at something,… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Whether they're ghosts of great writers or people I loved - some died because of AIDS, others under mysterious circumstances - I… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Reading gave me great comfort and pleasure. When I started being able to write, around seven or eight, I wanted to be… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think those women who get themselves to write essays, it's not an easy thing to do because as women, you're not… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I'm not interested in safety. A great risk in writing is imagining you have something to protect. Playing it safe to placate… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think about material that could work in the novel or story as I'm writing. I see if I can get there… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Nothing is a matter of age. It's really in the person because you can publish book after book after book and still… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I learned to write from reading. I had no writing classes. It's part of my thinking as the writer-author, reading, but then… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I'm not just interested in the thoughts I have, but also in others' thoughts, and why not carry those forward? That's why… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I am interested in people, and I am interested enough in people that I want to be friends with a lot of… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think political situations usually work their way into my writing, but not necessarily in an explicit way. The environment is so… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Wanting to know all kinds of things is perfect for novelists, because novelists are generalists. We're not specialists in anything, except, hopefully,… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
It's easy, at this point in my life, very easy to write a beautiful sentence that's meaningless. A lot of writers do… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Writing and rewriting are the same thing to me. I don't believe what Allen Ginsberg said that "first thought, then - "… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
A book coming out into the world can be a harsh, harsh time. And your feelings are on the line. Everything that… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
You know how some people are upwardly mobile? I'm sort of downwardly mobile in the publishing world, because of my sales figures… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think the slowness of exchange is over, and the idea of waiting for a response - that's gone. People don't want… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I've always liked elliptical writing, whether it's Kafka or Paula Fox, and I'm often bored by writers who explain too much. I… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think there's much more privileging of the new in art. I think people want to think they privilege the new in… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I write about what I'm thinking about. I write about what is bothering me or what is a political, aesthetic, or ethical… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
Writers don't want to appear to be stupid. I don't know - maybe people become writers so that they can prove that… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
I think that sense of surprise, that you don't know where something is going, or what's going to happen, even as you… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
There may be an art to conversation, and some are better at it than others, but conversation's virtue lies in randomness and possibility: people,… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
I'd studied English literature and American history, but the English literature, which I thought was going to be helpful to me in an immediate… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
Laughing and crying are very similar. Sometimes people go from laughing to crying, or crying to laughing. I remember being at someone's wedding and… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
[Reality] isn't simply the so-called world that you're in. Your reality is a much larger one that takes in all matter of identification and… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
I write about what I'm thinking about. I write about what is bothering me or what is a political, aesthetic, or ethical issue or… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
My friends and I sometimes laugh at each other that there is so much maintenance of a body. I paid no attention when I… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
In a practical sense, pain kept me from sitting down as much, so that sometimes I would have to stand to write. Not that… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
I'm bothered, as a reader, when I feel the writer is filling in too much. Again, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, I think writers… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
It wasn't that I wanted to be an artist. But when I took my first drawing class with the painter Doug Ohlson, I could… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
I'm interested in reality but I'm not interested in realism at all. I'm interested in the ways that I think people want to relate. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
It's true you have to screen out a lot living in the city. I stayed away from New York for a long time after… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
Kafka wrote the great line: "my education has damaged me in ways I do not even know." And that's always been a signature motto… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
There are lots of unlikable characters in literature. It doesn't mean they're not fascinating. — Lynne Tillman Copy Share
