Reif Larsen

“Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions.”

— Reif Larsen

“What happened to all the historical detritus in the world? Some of it made it into drawers of museums, okay, but what…

— Reif Larsen

A novel is a tricky thing to map.

— Reif Larsen

I suddenly had an idea of how adults can hold on to a feeling for very long periods of time, long after…

— Reif Larsen

I was only twelve, but through the slow, inevitable burn of a thousand sunrises and sunsets, a thousand maps traced and retraced,…

— Reif Larsen

How many snapshots in the world were actually just-after shots, the moment that elicited the shooter to press the button never captured;…

— Reif Larsen

Do you ever get the feeling like you already know the entire contents of the universe somewhere inside of your head, as…

— Reif Larsen

I do love the sound of ripping corn husks. The violence of the noise, the sustained popping and shoring of the silky…

— Reif Larsen

A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that…

— Reif Larsen

Writing a novel is always complicated, it's not like you snap your fingers and go, 'Ah, I know what I'll write'. For…

— Reif Larsen

A text is evolutionary by its very nature.

— Reif Larsen

“Dr. Clair looked at Layton. The mancala pieces were still in her hand. If Angela Ashforth ever says anything like that to…

— Reif Larsen

“I suppose he represented the worst of what rural life can do to a man: he was racist, uneducated, and badly in…

— Reif Larsen

“Whenever I smelled the same perfume on other women, no matter where I was, I was instantly transported back to that feeling…

— Reif Larsen

“I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist and I'm influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born…

— Reif Larsen

“. . . the mountains sighed with the weight of the heavens on their backs.”

— Reif Larsen

I would not know what to say to you, except this: there was never a map that got it all right, and…

— Reif Larsen

“I suddenly missed the curious shelving patterns of my room, those old planks from the barn groaning under the weight of the…

— Reif Larsen

“Doodles were fertile ground; they were the visual evidence of heavy cognitive lifting. Although this was not always true: Ricky Lepardo was…

— Reif Larsen

“I just get a feeling sometimes that everything is predetermined, and I am going through the motions of tracing an existence that…

— Reif Larsen

“The sun was crouched on its haunches over the Pioneers. The mountains were both purple and brown, the angle of light hitting…

— Reif Larsen

One cannot spend one's entire life running into bathrooms when danger calls!

— Reif Larsen

“Did the true, umbilical love that bound people together for the length of their lives require a certain intellectual dislocution in order…

— Reif Larsen

Outside, there was that predawn kind of clarity, where the momentum of living has not quite captured the day. The air was…

— Reif Larsen

Part of being a writer is knowing when what you write is really bad.

— Reif Larsen