Notable American Women is a weird nougat of a book that suggests Coetzee, Kafka, Beckett, Barthelme, O'Brien, Orwell, Paley, Borges-and none of them exactly. Finally you just have to chew it for its own private juice. — Padgett Powell Copy Share Image
If you could have a famous writer, dead or alive, write an obituary for you and really puff you up to have been something… — Padgett Powell Copy Share
That's part of fiction, creating a world better than the one you live in. — Padgett Powell Copy Share
I've had an addiction for a long time to the whole business of maximizing one's potential, what I call human activation. The vehicle for… — Padgett Powell Copy Share
“the zombies, after all, were pretty slow to appreciate someone other than themselves, and they had been schooled not to denigrate the different. --Mrs.… — padgett powell Copy Share
Even if you're the worst writer in the world, at least you'll have the evidence. — Padgett Powell Copy Share
“ease up. the day was rued when we came upon it, or when it came upon us, and beheld us marring the horizon, sitting… — Padgett Powell Copy Share
I knew I was supposed to be a writer; I had made that declaration in the closet of my soul. — Padgett Powell Copy Share
“Now she understood a few things: that the American academy, which one might have thought the place to defend freedom of speech, had been… — Padgett Powell Copy Share
“A whole section of the family tree is pruned and primped and assessed as I politely sit there. Overall, I detect that the tree… — Padgett Powell Copy Share
Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when you were young, know less now than when… — Padgett Powell Copy Share
Cholesterol to go with alcohol; all the bad things in English-speaking life end in -ol. — Padgett Powell Copy Share
