“Your Mom's Car. Think about that. Try to wrap your brain around the supernatural and spiritual implications that the name bears down… — Dan Chaon Cars Copy Share Image
“The desire to remake that shrinking expanse of life they were still allotted, to make use of it, to fill it up… — Dan Chaon Change 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 Bits 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 Asks Copy Share Image
I love to write when I feel like everybody else is asleep and when I feel like the world is kind of… — Dan Chaon Empty Copy Share Image
There are so many people we could become, and we leave such a trail of bodies through our teens and twenties that… — Dan Chaon Abandon Copy Share Image
I've always been a horror movie fan, since I was a kid. And I was also a really scared kid. I was… — Dan Chaon Dark 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 Letting go Copy Share Image
“Beth had been a middle school science teacher and Joni was a librarian and they both had collections of weird stuff they… — Dan Chaon Bizarre Copy Share Image
“In these journals I would frequently write messages to myself, a person whom I addressed as Big Me, or The Future Me.… — Dan Chaon Self 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 About yourself Copy Share Image
I never wanted to get to a point in my life where I knew what was going to happen next. I felt… — Dan Chaon Found 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 Block 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… — Dan Chaon Hard to believe Copy Share Image
I have to admit that 'Psychology Today' was one of the first magazines I started reading, back when I was 13 or… — Dan Chaon Curious 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 Bottom Copy Share Image
You can recognize in your own reading habits what writers are doing that works and what doesn't. I'm becoming much more aware… — Dan Chaon Becoming Copy Share Image
“He had grown fond of the old proprietress, Mrs. Matalov, who had been a magician's assistant back in the 1930s, and who… — Dan Chaon Beautiful woman Copy Share Image
At a certain point, you must be able to slip loose. At a certain point, you found that you had been set… — Dan Chaon Able 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 Kind 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 Hypnotic Copy Share Image
A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you… — Dan Chaon Books Copy Share Image
There are all kinds of strange threads in American culture, and places where sympathy is extended and places where it isn't, and… — Dan Chaon All kinds 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 Behave Copy Share Image
The danger in writing about a world you don't know very well is that you can get lost in it, and sometimes… — Dan Chaon Danger Copy Share Image
“And he saw now that it wasn't real. That it had never been real. He could feel that other life shrinking and… — Dan Chaon Mind Copy Share Image
“There is hardly anything at all. His life is suddenly a large, empty house, with each vacant room waiting to be furnished.… — Dan Chaon Life 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 Brick 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 Books Copy Share Image
The earliest impetuses for writing, for me, were simply the strange things I happened to notice in my everyday life, stuff I… — Dan Chaon Anecdotes Copy Share Image
I have long admired Caroline Leavitt's probing insight into people, her wit and compassion, her ability to find humor in dark situations,… — Dan Chaon Ability Copy Share Image
I'm certainly very influenced by what you would call 'contemporary headline horror,' stuff that is true crime or for one reason or… — Dan Chaon Anecdotes Copy Share Image
