“He sank back into his black-and-white world, his immobile world of inanimate drawings that had been granted the secret of motion, his death-world with its hidden gift of life. But that life was a deeply ambiguous life, a conjurer's trick,… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share Image
But what struck me was the book-madness of the place--books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“For what is genius, I ask you, but the capacity to be obsessed? ...We have all been geniuses, you and I; but sooner or… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“A story with a single ending seems to us a bare and diminished thing, like a tree with a single branch; and each ending… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
His ambition was to insert his dreams into the world, and if they were the wrong dreams, then he would dream them in solitude. — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“... now and again we would happen to step out of the familiar universe into a sudden sharp shock of sweetly scented air, sudden… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“Martin thought of the iron El trestles winding and stretching across the city, of department store windows and hotel lobbies, of electric elevators and… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“Then solar systems, galaxies, supernovas, infinite space itself will become elements of a final masterwork--a never-ending festival, a celestial amusement park in which every… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
In the long dusks of summer we walked the suburban streets through scents of maple and cut grass, waiting for something to happen. — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“... it is the purpose of this history to trace not the mere outlines of a life but the inner plan, not the external… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“Others saw in the trend still another instance of a disturbing tendency in the American suburb: the longing for withdrawal, for self-enclosure, for expensive… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate for our dreams. — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
“I thought of myself, in those days, as someone in disguise—beneath the obedient son, beneath the straight-A student, the agreeable well-brought-up boy with his… — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
I saw that I was in danger of becoming ordinary, and I understood that from now on I would have to be vigilant. — Steven Millhauser Copy Share
