You can't tell people how to feel when they read your work. You can only hope to connect. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I know a lot of people don't listen to music when they're writing because it distracts them, but for me it's almost… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I have long admired Caroline Leavitt's probing insight into people, her wit and compassion, her ability to find humor in dark situations,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
There are so many people we could become, and we leave such a trail of bodies through our teens and twenties that… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
A lot of people work really diligently to maintain a "profile" in the writing world, but that's so hard, and so boring… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
When I was younger I was attracted to people who had that kind of artifice - people who were incredibly polished and… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I never wanted to get to a point in my life where I knew what was going to happen next. I felt… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I'd read an enormous amount but had spent so much time in my own head that I didn't have extensive social skills.… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I can't understand how people can settle for having just one life. I remember we were in English class and we were… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I have to admit that 'Psychology Today' was one of the first magazines I started reading, back when I was 13 or… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I never could figure out how those people like Bukowski could be both carousers and writers at the same time, because to… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I guess I'm curious about how people process grief and how they process loss. And I'm also interested in the ways in… — 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
