The story is always in service to the characters, and is only as long or short, or neat or ragged as it needs to be. — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
The happiest she'd ever been was with him, and the saddest. Was that the true test of love? — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
It is not brilliance or facility that is necessary, but the determination to bear and even enjoy the dull process of wading into one's… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
I always squirm when I read what's called 'creative nonfiction,' and the writer is lobbing gobs of emotion and language at the world, hoping… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
Local teenagers killed in a car crash is a suburban legend, a stock plot line. — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
“He could no longer be that Ed Larsen, but, through a lack of imagination or just sheer exhaustion, he couldn't come up with a… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
“They should." "Should be like a wood bee," she said. It was a private joke, a mocking appreciation of the slipperiness of even the… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
I'm not sure the risks I take are any different from what other writers take, since we all serve at the pleasure of the… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
“Come then, come with us, out into the night. Come now, America the lovesick, America the timid, the blessed, the educated, come stalk the… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
“Often, as she leafed through the sticky, plastic-coated pages, spotting herself with a frizzy perm or wearing a loud, printed blouse, she was struck… — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
As a fiction writer, my favorite tools are my imagination and the peculiar opportunities offered by different points of view. — Stewart O'Nan Copy Share Image
