I always worry that knowing too much about a novel or a story early on in writing will close it down -… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I think that the way that I write stories is by instinct. You have some basic ideas - a character, or an… — 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
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
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
You can't count on notoriety lasting very long, and there's no way to predict whether anyone will care about your books or… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
It's not like it ruined my life, I was going to say, but then I didn't. Because it occurred to me that… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I think we're always in some ways writing to the teachers who gave us early love. — 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
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
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
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
In some ways all of my fiction is like a conversation I'm having with the writers I read when I was first… — 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
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
