Charles Baxter Quotes

Quotes about:

• When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.

  Charles Baxter

  Moving, Love You, World

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.23, Vintage

  36 Copy quote

• At its best, fiction is not a diversion but a means of knowing the world.

  Charles Baxter

  Mean, Knowing, Fiction

  5 Copy quote

• A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Unseen, Details

  Charles Baxter (2007). “The art of subtext: beyond plot”, Graywolf Pr

  9 Copy quote

• As my mother once said to me, ‘They’re quite crazy, dear – men are. What you look for is one of them whose insanity is large enough, and calm and generous enough, to include you.

  Charles Baxter

  Mother, Crazy, Men

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.138, Vintage

  16 Copy quote

• Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

  Charles Baxter

  Art, Ice Cream, Forget

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.109, Vintage

  15 Copy quote

• In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.

  Charles Baxter

  Reality, Two, People

  Charles Baxter (2001). “The feast of love”, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

• Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Friendly, Want

  14 Copy quote

• Every relationship has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day. That day is always in your possession. That's the day you remember. You get old and you think: well, at least I had that day. It happened once. You think all the variables might just line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to a woman who said, "Yeah, that's the day we had an angel around.

  Charles Baxter

  Mean, Good Day, Angel

  Charles Baxter (2012). “The Feast of Love”, p.17, HarperCollins UK

  45 Copy quote

• If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Ideas, Acting

  10 Copy quote

• In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to you psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.

  Charles Baxter

  Past, Doctors, Sky

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.248, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

• Try to get your characters into interesting trouble. Allow your characters to misbehave. Let them stay out after 11.

  Charles Baxter

  Character, Interesting, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• Short story characters, mine anyway, are usually driven by impulse, not so much by their histories and the choices that they have to make.

  Charles Baxter

  Character, Choices, Stories

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  7 Copy quote

• I don't think that most women have to prove that they're real women. You live long enough, you graduate to being real.

  Charles Baxter

  Real, Thinking, Long

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.33, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• When blame has been assigned, the story is over.

  Charles Baxter

  Stories, Blame, Has Beens

  Charles Baxter (1997). “Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction”

  5 Copy quote

• When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Destiny, Details

  Charles Baxter (1997). “Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction”

  8 Copy quote

• At least with pets, and for all I know, people too, intelligence and quick-wittedness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind, nothing at all, less than nothing.

  Charles Baxter

  People, Pet, Be Kind

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.62, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• Savor the imminent weirdness of the day.

  Charles Baxter

  Weirdness

  Charles Baxter (2011). “Gryphon: New and Selected Stories”, p.169, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• There is no weather in malls.

  Charles Baxter

  Weather, Malls

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.119, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Air, Waiting

  9 Copy quote

• Literature is not an instruction manual.

  Charles Baxter

  Literature, Instruction, Manuals

  Charles Baxter (1997). “Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction”

  5 Copy quote

• Everybody should customize their names.

  Charles Baxter

  Names, Should

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.153, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• I feel quite at home writing short stories but nervous and anxious when writing novels, as if the bad time of consecutive failures might arise again.

  Charles Baxter

  Home, Writing, Stories

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

• The worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness.

  Charles Baxter

  Sweet, Mistake, Made

  Charles Baxter (2009). “The Feast of Love”, p.31, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.

  Charles Baxter

  Couple, Real, Unhappy

  Charles Baxter (2000). “The Feast of Love”, Pantheon

  5 Copy quote

• It's my feeling that any writer can get an emotion into a story without being sentimental as long as the emotion is dealt with honestly, with sufficient clarity, and detail.

  Charles Baxter

  Long, Feelings, Details

  "Off the Page: Charles Baxter". Live Chat, www.washingtonpost.com. October 16, 2003.

  5 Copy quote

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