I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
“Rhyme is bullshit. Rhyme says that everything works out in the end. All harmony and order. When I see a rhyme in a poem, I know I'm being lied to. Go ahead, laugh! It's true—rhyme's a completely bankrupt device. It's… — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that… — Tobias Wolff Copy Share
We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of the meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will… — Tobias Wolff Copy Share
“But for now Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows to lengthen on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark… — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
One of the last courses I taught was on the Russian short story, which I love. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
“He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else.” — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
Work for most people is really very social, and the actual thinking is often done in community. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
Writers cannot let themselves be servants of the official mythology. They have to, whatever the cost, say what truth they have to say. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
One can imagine a world without essays. It would be a little poorer, of course, like a world without chess, but one could live… — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter. — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
“Lose Faith. Pray anyway. Persist. We are made to persist, to complete the whole tour. That's how we find out who we are.” — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
