I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
My main reader was my wife Sheila, and I haven't written a lot since she died. — Dan Chaon Books 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 Book Copy Share Image
“The circumstances of life-the events of life-the people around me in life-do not make me the way I am. They reveal the… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“The type of person who will always be your friend, for as long as you can stand to keep disappointing her.” — Dan Chaon Friend 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 Book 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… — Dan Chaon Books 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 Dream 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
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
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
“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
“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
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
Writing short stories was kind of like I was cheating the whole time, in some way. I went back and forth between… — Dan Chaon Books Copy Share Image
I can't understand how people can settle for having just one life. I remember we were in English class and we were… — 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… — Dan Chaon Bleakness 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
“Her name...was Mrs. marina Orlova, and she had grown up in Siberia. Later, she would tell him that she loathed the American… — Dan Chaon Customs Copy Share Image
“Hesitantly, I touched the stump where my finger used to be. In my mind, something almost remembered itself, but the fumes of… — Dan Chaon 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
“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
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
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
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 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
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
“As her husband held her close, she could feel the pulse of other choices, other lives, opening up beneath her. Her past… — Dan Chaon Heart Copy Share Image
I knew I wanted to play around with genre-esque imagery, and the identity theft stuff came in the middle, when I was… — Dan Chaon Character Copy Share Image
I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
When I was younger I was attracted to people who had that kind of artifice - people who were incredibly polished and… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“the professor talking about eigengrau—intrinsic gray, brain gray. It was the color you “saw” when light was totally absent, a kind of… — Dan Chaon Color Copy Share Image
“Let us say that this, all of this, has a logic to it. We understand each other, don't we? Are we not,… — Dan Chaon Logic Copy Share Image
The kind of person I find myself interested in is a cross between being very emotionally complex and very immature. That's what… — Dan Chaon Complexes Copy Share Image
“It’s called apophenia. It’s the tendency we humans have to find meaning in disconnected information. For example, some people believe in what’s… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I like to sleep about four or five really solid hours at night, and then sometimes take a nap in the afternoon… — 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
“There is your car and the open road, the fabled lure of random adventure. You stand at the verge, and you could… — Dan Chaon Adventure Copy Share Image
“This is one of those things that you can never explain to anyone; that's what I want to explain - one of… — Dan Chaon Connections Copy Share Image
