Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the future. — 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… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I guess I've been blessed with insomnia because I do a lot of my writing at night. Because I don't sleep as… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
A lot of time, with stories, I'll start out with a title and try to dream myself into the story that it… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I'm working with fragments a lot of the time and the connective tissue isn't there yet. I think of it the way… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“He had built his own future brick by brick around himself but there were no doors or windows, at least that was… — 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
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
“Does a human life, a "personality," exist as a single thread that can be followed through time? Is the "me" of 20… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
It doesn't matter what you do. In the end, you are going to be judged, and all the times that you're not… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I read a lot, but at the same time I'm not a particularly good or diligent or discriminating reader. I go through… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“The first time she had tried to kill herself, she had intuited that there was no escape. She had seen, with sudden… — 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'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
You can go on like this for a very long time, and no one will notice. You keep thinking you're going to… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Writing short stories was kind of like I was cheating the whole time, in some way. I went back and forth between… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
That's how I work, whether with stories or novels - they start with an image that comes to me in a daydream,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“You want a child because it is a link in the bridge that you are building between the past and the future,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“What if she never knows the end of the story? She shudders, and her mind continues to lurch forward into the future,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
There is a stage you reach, Deagle thinks, a time somewhere in early middle age, when your past ceases to be about… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
So this was what it felt like to lose yourself. Again. To let go of your future and let it rise up… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once -- I've been working on three different novels. When I… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I wanted to write a horror story. But in some ways, I have always thought of myself as a kind of ghost-story/horror… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I started out as a poet who primarily wanted to write about image and moment. Over the years I've been trying to… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I think at a certain point the book develops a certain weight, or pressure. You've been pushing the rock up the hill… — 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
