Stanley Elkin Quotes

• I don't believe less is more. I believe that more is more. I believe that less is less, fat fat, thin thin and enough is enough.

  Stanley Elkin

  Believe, Less Is More, Enough

  48 Copy quote

• The peculiar dignity of men seen eating alone in restaurants on national holidays

  Stanley Elkin

  Holiday, Men, Peculiar

  Stanley Elkin (1967). “Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers”

  32 Copy quote

• Writing is an exercise in sculpture, chipping away at the rock until you find the nose.

  Stanley Elkin

  Writing, Exercise, Rocks

  18 Copy quote

• I would never write about anyone who is not at the end of his rope.

  Stanley Elkin

  Writing, Rope, Ends

  8 Copy quote

• Life's tallest order is to keep the feelings up, to make two dollars' worth of euphoria go the distance. And life can't do that. So fiction does.

  Stanley Elkin

  Distance, Order, Two

  9 Copy quote

• Like a lot of what happens in novels, inspiration is
  a sort of spontaneous combustion--the oily rags of the head and heart.

  Stanley Elkin

  Inspiration, Heart, Rags

  8 Copy quote

• Like most people of my generation, I fell in love with the philosophy of existentialism. There is no particular religious tradition in my work. There is only one psychological assertion that I would insist upon. That is: the SELF takes precedence.

  Stanley Elkin

  Religious, Philosophy, Self

  9 Copy quote

• The furthest out is the only place to be.

  Stanley Elkin

  Crafts

  6 Copy quote

• It's fine, precise, detailed work, the infinitely small motor management of diamond cutters and safecrackers that we do in our heads.

  Stanley Elkin

  Management, Fine, Diamond

  7 Copy quote

• But it's hard to talk about art. Maybe there should be a law against it, some First Amendment gag order like crying fire in a crowded theater.

  Stanley Elkin

  Art, Fire, Order

  4 Copy quote

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