I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“But on that particular day I did not even begin to feel interested in this chore, and was suddenly more deeply bored than I… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
If a translation doesn't have obvious writing problems, it may seem quite all right at first glance. We readers, after all, quickly adapt to… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
I always interrupt work with other work, either in a small way or big way, so that's normal. — Lydia Davis Copy Share
I worked more intensively hour after hour when I was starting out [writing]. More laboriously. I'd say quantity is important as well as quality,… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting. — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“because she couldn’t write the name of what she was: a wa wam owm owamn womn” — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“Everything was sharper, clearer, and closer, as though, before, I had been seeing only little bits at a time, not all of it, of… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“He did not know exactly when to thank his hostess after attending a dinner or a weekend party. In his uncertainty, he would thank… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“There was no confusion of our bodies. I knew which arm was his and which mine, and which leg, and which shoulder. I did… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“So it’s not really $100 a shot because it goes on all day, from the start when you wake up and feel her body… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“The people of the town, though, remained strangers: I could not realize that I must be seeing some of them over and over again,… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
“He does not trust her: she will claim to be in a bad mood when she is not, and then require him to be… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
I would recommend, definitely, developing a 'day job' that you like - don't expect to make money writing! — Lydia Davis Copy Share
the translator, a lonely sort of acrobat, becomes confused in a labyrinth of paradox, or climbs a pyramid of dependent clauses and has to… — Lydia Davis Copy Share
