“I once assigned a graduate class Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life—a book I love—and one of the students said, “It’s so effing high-minded it makes me want to go to the Kmart.” — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
The ironic humor comes from the distance between what we understand about ourselves and what is truly going on in ourselves. — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
“If all the artists you loved changed you, they'd hack you up in little piece and you'd never get back together. That, or you'd… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
“Most journals are repositories of great swatches of abstraction and generalization and self-analysis and interpretation and all that bad stuff. Don’t do that. But… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
The only craft and technique you have legitimate access to is the craft and technique you forgot, that has dissolved itself into the unconscious...… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
Natural writers will often try to force themselves into a form - novel, story, screenplay, or poem - that is not necessarily the appropriate… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing,… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
Jayne Anne Phillips . . . is at the height of her powers in Lark and Termite. . . . This is a major… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
“And so, given the musical sensibilities Hatcher treasured in his earthly life, it is hard to exaggerate the severity of his torture at standing… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
All plot comes from the character's trying to get something, to achieve something, wanting, desiring, longing. — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
In Red Flags, Juris Jurjevics has brilliantly accomplished a feat that is becoming a major characteristic of 21st century literature: the seamless combining of… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
“I think, by the way, that’s why athletes are so superstitious. Because if you believe that your current batting streak depends on wearing a… — Robert Olen Butler Copy Share Image
