America Quote by Robert Olen Butler

The ironic humor comes from the distance between what we understand about ourselves and what is truly going on in ourselves.

— Robert Olen Butler

“If all the artists you loved changed you, they'd hack you up in little piece and you'd never get back together. That, or you'd…

— Robert Olen Butler

“Most journals are repositories of great swatches of abstraction and generalization and self-analysis and interpretation and all that bad stuff. Don’t do that. But…

— Robert Olen Butler

The only craft and technique you have legitimate access to is the craft and technique you forgot, that has dissolved itself into the unconscious...…

— Robert Olen Butler

Natural writers will often try to force themselves into a form - novel, story, screenplay, or poem - that is not necessarily the appropriate…

— Robert Olen Butler

The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing,…

— Robert Olen Butler

“And so, given the musical sensibilities Hatcher treasured in his earthly life, it is hard to exaggerate the severity of his torture at standing…

— Robert Olen Butler

All plot comes from the character's trying to get something, to achieve something, wanting, desiring, longing.

— Robert Olen Butler

In Red Flags, Juris Jurjevics has brilliantly accomplished a feat that is becoming a major characteristic of 21st century literature: the seamless combining of…

— Robert Olen Butler

We are the yearning creatures of this planet.

— Robert Olen Butler

“I think, by the way, that’s why athletes are so superstitious. Because if you believe that your current batting streak depends on wearing a…

— Robert Olen Butler

“And William says, "I lost one son utterly."... ..."So I've held my tongue. But the truth is you didn't go to war. You went…

— Robert Olen Butler