There's a half-conscious state you enter when you're actually generating prose, and you are simply a better writer in that place. In fact it's the only place where you even are a writer. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
This to me is the secret comedy of all author interviews, down through the ages, even the good ones in the 'Paris Review' and places. They're all acting. It's like watching a person in a play. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
Ireland starts for me with the end of 'The Dead,' which my father read to me from his desk in his basement office in… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
“If we put aside the self-awareness standard -- and really, how arbitrary and arrogant is that, to take the attribute of consciousness we happen to… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
I'm just saying, take courage. That and pretty much that alone is never the incorrect thing to do. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
What’s old doesn’t need to be old-fashioned. It gets reborn. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
The city of Cork - the urban center, where all the shops and bars and everything are - is actually an island, a river… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
The justification for rap rock seems to be that if you take really bad rock and put really bad rap over it, the result… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
A good writer wants from us — or has no right to ask more than — intelligence, good faith and time. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
It is a curious fact that the word 'essayist' showed up in English before it existed in French. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
The initial research will be very indiscriminate. I do a lot of reading, buy a stack of books and read and digest them, and… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
One of the best things I’ve read about that inexplicably, but endlessly, fascinating group of people, the so-called Serious Collectors of 78s. Petrusich burrows… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
The greenness of Ireland is a false greenness, after all. Not that it isn't green - the place can still make you have to… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
This is why you can never reason true Christians out of the faith. It's not, as the adage has it, because they were never… — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
