Fiction is fun because you get to steal an identity and try to make it authentic. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
The feeling of being an outsider, and the identity theme, are hardwired into me. If there's anything really autobiographical in my fiction,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“Anxiety!” he said. “I’ve been there, plenty of times! And, you know, it’s particularly hard during the first one, especially, because you’re… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I knew I wanted to play around with genre-esque imagery, and the identity theft stuff came in the middle, when I was… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Identity issues are hardwired into the way I think about character - it's almost as if I can't get away from them… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Our sense of self is a kind of construct. It is in some ways like a novel, and it's like a fabric… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the future. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
For the last few years I've tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn't sound like much but… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“It's hard to believe that this is how it's done. That this is how we get here into the world, by accident or design,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I also have just my own limits about stuff. I'm not interested in writing graphically about sexual assault for example. I feel like the… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“I have to admit that most of the time I read in the same way that I smoke and chew gum and jiggle my… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“Outside, the sleet had gotten thicker. You could hear it pebbling against the large glass windows, you could see it swirling wildly through the… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I was worried that, as a college teacher, if I wrote too much about intergenerational sex my students would be creeped out. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Plot and scene are still the hardest things for me, though I think they're the building blocks of what makes a story work. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“I've been talking to myself a lot lately. I don't know what that's about, but my mother was the same way. She hated to… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“Your Mom's Car. Think about that. Try to wrap your brain around the supernatural and spiritual implications that the name bears down you. Your… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“He pictures amputated human arms flopping like fish down the center of the road; syringes floating on beds of liposuctioned fat; gelatinous human eyeballs… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
