Best Tobias Wolff Quotes
- I recall that my workshop leaders were tactful in their ways of acquainting me with my shortcomings as a writer. So much so that I… Accident
- In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and… Clears
- But a lot of writers - and I'm one of them - do tend to feel dissatisfied. It makes you a little hard to live… Alert
- Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity. Ability
- Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing. Careful
- We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are. Determination
- A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life. Change
- Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end.… Coming
- When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and… Act
- I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that… Able
- There are very few professions in which people just sit down and think hard for five or six hours a day all by themselves. Of… All
- Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it. Fearlessness
- You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase… All
- We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed,… Anymore
- When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves - never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than… Approval
- The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness. Beauty
- One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing… Draws
- The reader really has to step up to the plate and read a short story. Plate
- Anybody can be very destructive in that position without at all meaning to be, and I know that I have been inadvertently destructive in the… All
- And you can tell the writers who do it - Robert Stone, for example, who with each new novel is doing something new. I appreciate… Appreciate
- The short story, on the other hand, is the perfect American form. American
- Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow. Control
- When I was about 14 or 15 I decided to become a writer and never for a moment since have I wanted to do anything… Anything Else
- Because the more you write the more you're aware of the weight of your tradition and the difficulties of the form and the more you… Already Done
- Most of us don't live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented. Expression