“Lately it's started to seem to me that here in America our fetishization of self-reliance has taken a wrong turn and has helped enable us to jettison compassion as a national value while still maintaining a vision of ourselves as… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I love the box that such a decision puts you in, and I love the interest the reader has in seeing how you negotiate… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I don't think conservativism is about a deficiency. I think it's about a commitment to an ideology that has to in some ways devalue… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I do find stories - or literary fiction - an apt form for analyzing the world. And especially for trying to imagine the other.… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
Does research get in the way of the story? It certainly can. Anything can, given that as writers we're all geniuses at procrastination. But… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
“But what I did was the kind of thing you'd do and the kind of thing you've done: I felt bad for him and… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I have written screenplays. Most recently for Errol Morris, who was thinking about doing his first fiction movie, and with a young director who… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
Class is the most taboo subject in America. The American media would rather talk about race or perversion or anything else considered taboo before… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I don't beat at the details, but I do always keep in mind that anything that isn't A) moving the story forward or B)… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
Empathy is a human trait. But lots of humans exercise some traits more energetically than others. By "the usefulness of empathy" I mean the… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
“But this is the only account hand-copied and tacked to my bulletin board, the testimony of a Dutch pilot caught on shore near Anjer,… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I'm tempted to do everything. And sometimes I think, "Oh, come on. You can stick that detail somewhere." — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
I'll find something in what I read that snags my imagination in emotional terms; it resonates with me for reasons more complicated than just… — Jim Shepard Copy Share Image
