Latest Lydia Davis Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Work hard and meticulously. When in trouble, look closely at a text that is a good example of what you're trying to do. And be patient.

  Lydia Davis

  Hard Work, Trying, Example

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• Because I'm not writing all the time (thank goodness), my mind is sometimes pleasantly blank.

  Lydia Davis

  Writing, Mind, Sometimes

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I think a lot of what goes into writing can be taught - not mixing metaphors, etc.

  Lydia Davis

  Writing, Thinking, Mixing

  "Live Chat with Lydia Davis". www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I worked more intensively hour after hour when I was starting out [writing]. More laboriously. I'd say quantity is important as well as quality, and if you're not producing enough, make a schedule and stick to it.

  Lydia Davis

  Writing, After Hours, Important

  "Live Chat with Lydia Davis". www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I'm a fierce editor! I don't edit out things that I began by saying, usually. The editing is on the micro level - a comma here, a word there.

  Lydia Davis

  Editing, Editors, Levels

  "Live Chat with Lydia Davis". www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• The style developed over decades, really, but I started out writing pretty traditional stories, then became impatient. It was a writer named Russell Edson who showed me that one could write in any way at all.

  Lydia Davis

  Writing, Style, Stories

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 10, 2009.

• That's the interesting thing about writing. You can start late, you can be ignorant of things, and yet, if you work hard and pay attention you can do a good job of it.

  Lydia Davis

  Jobs, Hard Work, Writing

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I started with small-press publishers, who were willing to publish all sorts of forms. I didn't move to the larger presses until they knew what they were getting in for.

  Lydia Davis

  Moving, Form, Willing

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.

  Lydia Davis

  Writing, Two, Brain

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting.

  Lydia Davis

  Struggle, Reader, Allegory

  The Transcript of Our Live Chat with Lydia Davis, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I'm used to rereading e-mails, even, before sending them - a bit compulsive. So this is high speed roller coaster for me!

  Lydia Davis

  Rereading, Mail, Speed

  The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 16, 2009.

• I often pose questions to myself and want the answers. The questions may be psychological or emotional. Or they may involve botany or [...] physiology. [...] I am very curious about strangers I observe - as in a bus line. I am very attached to finding out answers.

  Lydia Davis

  Emotional, Lines, May

  Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January, 2008.

• There is something very pleasing about the principles of science and the rules of math, because they are so inevitable and so harmonious - in the abstract, anyway.

  Lydia Davis

  Math, Principles, Abstract

  Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January, 2008.

• As the writer, I may choose to ignore the emotional heart of the matter, and focus on details, and trust that the heart of the matter will be conveyed nevertheless.

  Lydia Davis

  Heart, Emotional, Focus

  Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January, 2008.

• I don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.

  Lydia Davis

  Believe, Vocabulary, Deployment

  Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January 2008.

• I don't believe a good poet is very often deliberately obscure. A poet writes in a way necessary to him or her; the reader may then find the poem difficult.

  Lydia Davis

  Believe, Writing, May

  Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January, 2008.

• To be simple, I would say a story has to have a bit of narrative, if only "she says," and then enough of a creation of a different time and place to transport the reader.

  Lydia Davis

  Simple, Narrative, Different

  Source: www.believermag.com