I think a lot of what goes into writing can be taught - not mixing metaphors, etc. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I've gotten very alert not just to mixed metaphor but to any writing mistake. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
Because I'm not writing all the time (thank goodness), my mind is sometimes pleasantly blank. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I do think novels are overlooked. I did write one some years ago that I think is quite good, called 'The End… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
When I'm trying a new form- trying to do something I'm not used to doing, which was true of the novel. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
That's the interesting thing about writing. You can start late, you can be ignorant of things, and yet, if you work hard… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“But at other times, I sit here reading in the afternoon, a myrtle in my buttonhole, and there are such beautiful passages… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
All of the little entries in 'The Cows' were written in an irregular way. There might be one or two done one… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
To observe the world carefully, to write a lot and often, on a schedule if necessary, to use the dictionary a lot,… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“But on that particular day I did not even begin to feel interested in this chore, and was suddenly more deeply bored than I… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
If a translation doesn't have obvious writing problems, it may seem quite all right at first glance. We readers, after all, quickly adapt to… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I always interrupt work with other work, either in a small way or big way, so that's normal. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I worked more intensively hour after hour when I was starting out [writing]. More laboriously. I'd say quantity is important as well as quality,… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting. — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“because she couldn’t write the name of what she was: a wa wam owm owamn womn” — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“Everything was sharper, clearer, and closer, as though, before, I had been seeing only little bits at a time, not all of it, of… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“He did not know exactly when to thank his hostess after attending a dinner or a weekend party. In his uncertainty, he would thank… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“There was no confusion of our bodies. I knew which arm was his and which mine, and which leg, and which shoulder. I did… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“So it’s not really $100 a shot because it goes on all day, from the start when you wake up and feel her body… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
“The people of the town, though, remained strangers: I could not realize that I must be seeing some of them over and over again,… — Lydia Davis Copy Share Image
![“I worked more intensively hour after hour when I was starting out [writing]. More laboriously. I'd say quantity is important as well as quality, and if you're not producing enough, make a schedule and stick to it.” quote by Lydia Davis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/29b/lydia-davis-3244_after-hours_i-worked-more-intensively-hour-after-hou_171566.jpg)
