Jonathan Evison Quotes

• Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you've ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you've ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you've ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible.

  Jonathan Evison

  Taken, Thinking, Dust

  Jonathan Evison (2013). “The Fundamentals of Caring”, p.221, Head of Zeus

  45 Copy quote

• Reading is, at its best, not an escape; it is genuine experience. A novel is not a monologue, but a conversation, a collaboration between writer and reader, an invaluable exchange of human conditions.

  Jonathan Evison

  Reading, Collaboration, Genuine

  5 Copy quote

• Can we really be whoever we want to be, now that we’ve collected all that we are?

  Jonathan Evison

  Want

  Jonathan Evison (2012). “West of Here”, p.295, Algonquin Books

  4 Copy quote

• As a result of manifest destiny, we gutted our resources.

  Jonathan Evison

  Destiny, Results, Resources

  13 Copy quote

• You have to smile, if you expect anybody to smile back.

  Jonathan Evison

  Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• Limited points of view let the writer dispense - and the reader gather - information from various corners of the story. It all becomes a kind of dance, with the writer guiding the reader through the various twists and turns. The challenge is keeping readers in step, while still managing to surprise.

  Jonathan Evison

  Views, Challenges, Twists

  4 Copy quote

• We are born haunted, he said, his voice weak, but still clear. Haunted by our fathers and mothers and daughters, and by people we don't remember. We are haunted by otherness, by the path not taken, by the life unlived. We are haunted by the changing winds and the ebbing tides of history. And even as our own flame burns brightest, we are haunted by the embers of the first dying fire. But mostly, said Lord Jim, we are haunted by ourselves.

  Jonathan Evison

  Daughter, Mother, Father

  Jonathan Evison (2012). “West of Here”, p.465, Algonquin Books

  4 Copy quote

• I usually write in my underwear, with a space heater running full blast, and three dogs sleeping at me feet.

  Jonathan Evison

  Running, Dog, Writing

  "Interview with Jonathan Evison, Author of West of Here". Interview with Jennifer Haupt, www.psychologytoday.com. March 31, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• I love being a struggling artist; it makes me feel very alive.

  Jonathan Evison

  Struggle, Artist, Love Is

  "Interview with Jonathan Evison, Author of West of Here". Interview with Jennifer Haupt, www.psychologytoday.com. March 31, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• But once you publish a book, doesn’t it by definition become the realm of public discourse? Otherwise, wouldn’t we just write books and print them out ourselves, and give them to specific people we felt comfortable giving them to–like gifts? Isn’t publishing sort of a social contract?

  Jonathan Evison

  Book, Writing, People

  4 Copy quote

• I know I've lost my mind. But I'm not concerned, because it's the first thing I've lost in a long time that actually feels good.

  Jonathan Evison

  Long, Feel Good, Mind

  Jonathan Evison (2013). “The Fundamentals of Caring”, p.189, Head of Zeus

  4 Copy quote

• My neediness is not a hole to be filled but something beneath the skin scratching to get out.

  Jonathan Evison

  Skins, Holes, Filled

  Jonathan Evison (2013). “The Fundamentals of Caring”, p.47, Head of Zeus

  4 Copy quote

• The jocks that used to stuff me into a locker when I was a punk rocker are my best buddies now.

  Jonathan Evison

  Lockers, Stuff, Jocks

  "Author Jonathan Evison on loss, survival and life’s epic journeys". Interview with Mary Ann Gwinn, www.seattletimes.com. September 24, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• You have to find hope. Hope is such a shape shifter. You tend to look in the rearview mirror for hope, but when its gone, you have to look forward. You have to get in the van and keep driving on.

  Jonathan Evison

  Mirrors, Looks, Gone

  "Author Jonathan Evison on loss, survival and life's epic journeys". Interview with Mary Ann Gwinn, www.seattletimes.com. September 24, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• I really believe in challenging myself, pushing myself to new places.

  Jonathan Evison

  Believe, Challenges, Challenging Myself

  4 Copy quote

• I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.

  Jonathan Evison

  Drinking, Years, Drinking Buddy

  4 Copy quote

• Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for the much needed salve--it feels good to finally laugh about Iraq. Fobbit deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war.

  Jonathan Evison

  War, Iraq, Laughing

  4 Copy quote

• I'll never stop caring. But the thing about caring is, it's inconvenient. Sometimes you've got to give when it makes no sense to at all. Sometimes you've got to give until it hurts.

  Jonathan Evison

  Life, Hurt, Caring

  4 Copy quote

• If I walk into a place, a party, say, and there's a bookshelf, I immediately gravitate toward it. Unless there's a bar. But even then, it's only a matter of a few rounds before I make my way to the bookshelf. If there are good books on it, I may never leave the spot all night. Anybody I really want to talk to is going to make his or her way to that bookshelf sooner or later, anyway, right? Books are a nexus. They start conversations, and they continue conversations, and they make people better conversationalists. I have not found this to be the case with Iron Chef, or even alcohol.

  Jonathan Evison

  Party, Book, Night

  4 Copy quote

• People really do change. Don't let anyone tell you differently. That the future does not conform to the past is not the exception, but the rule.

  Jonathan Evison

  Past, People, Doe

  Jonathan Evison (2009). “All About Lulu”, p.233, Soft Skull Press

  4 Copy quote

• It's not easy getting old, you know. Things become a lot less clear.

  Jonathan Evison

  Easy, Clear, Old You

  4 Copy quote

• The Mathematician's Shiva is a brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history, and humor, not to mention a cast of delightfully quirky characters, and a math lesson or two; all together, a winning equation! When Rojstaczer writes about mathematics, you'd think he was writing about poetry.

  Jonathan Evison

  Writing, Character, Math

  38 Copy quote

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