Lynne Tillman

I'm the author of my own misery.

— Lynne Tillman

I don't know what a natural thought process is.

— Lynne Tillman

Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.

— Lynne Tillman

Without curiosity a writer is dead.

— Lynne Tillman

I like to invent the dialogue that I want to have heard.

— Lynne Tillman

Certainly there will always be stories,

— Lynne Tillman

I think it's true that unless human beings experience something, they simply don't understand what people are going through.

— Lynne Tillman

Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject.

— Lynne Tillman

I'm interested in reality but I'm not interested in realism at all.

— Lynne Tillman

Do the obvious, you won't forget it. Do the obvious, you won't regret it. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

— Lynne Tillman

I subject my sentences and the words to a kind of Grand Inquisition.

— Lynne Tillman

There are lots of unlikable characters in literature. It doesn't mean they're not fascinating.

— Lynne Tillman

People, no matter the economic class, find ways to feed their narcissism.

— Lynne Tillman

I don't believe a picture is worth a thousand words, unless they're very confusing words.

— Lynne Tillman

You have to create the space for the possibility of people speaking as they do. If writing is supposed to lead us…

— Lynne Tillman

I don't have the education of an art historian. I've certainly read about art and look at art and have educated myself…

— Lynne Tillman

In a practical sense, pain kept me from sitting down as much, so that sometimes I would have to stand to write.…

— Lynne Tillman

People in the upper classes can just as easily be indifferent to their own body, or treat themselves as badly, as people…

— Lynne Tillman

[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…

— Lynne Tillman

When you free women so they can choose to have or not to have, or to conceive - that's something that, for…

— Lynne Tillman

Ulysses pissed me off. When Molly Bloom just says, "Yes I said yes I will Yes." And I'm thinking, You should be…

— Lynne Tillman

I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable." It's not about your character winning a…

— Lynne Tillman

If you're a "good" teacher, somebody who is responsible or careful, teaching takes time. Teaching is performative. Students nowadays evaluate you and…

— Lynne Tillman

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

I think some people are not interesting to themselves. They're the sad, resigned folk. When people call themselves ordinary - "I'm just…

— Lynne Tillman

I also think that the issue of doubt and uncertainty is always a good thing and I question why I believe what…

— Lynne Tillman

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

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

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

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

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

The idea of equality is misunderstood. I wouldn't ever argue that everyone is the same, but that differences should not be hierarchical.…

— Lynne Tillman

For me, the experience of not living in America was recognizing that I was American. You don't think about yourself being so…

— Lynne Tillman

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

As a reader myself, which precedes my being a writer, of course, I read in order to enter another world.

— Lynne Tillman

Boring people don't know they're boring. That's the problem with boring people.

— Lynne Tillman

I learned I could be miserable anywhere in the world. I learned I really was an American.

— Lynne Tillman

“I once heard that the French don't prosecute people who commit crimes of passion twenty minutes after waking.”

— Lynne Tillman

I think many writers really believe that being published is a traumatic experience.

— Lynne Tillman

People are less focused on the story, and more on how the story is told.

— Lynne Tillman