Alexander Chee Quotes

• Writers aren't born, they're made - from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine.

  Alexander Chee

  Reading, Writing, Practice

  4 Copy quote

• Every now and then, you find a book that feels like it was keyed to your DNA.

  Alexander Chee

  Book, Dna, Now And Then

  6 Copy quote

• I have lived for a long time inside a series of coincidences that most people would find implausible in a novel.

  Alexander Chee

  Long, People, Coincidence

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success.

  Alexander Chee

  Heart, Self, Faces

  "'MFA vs NYC': Both, Probably" by Andrew Martin, www.newyorker.com. March 28, 2014.

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• One of my big inspirations was Céleste Mogador. She was a courtesan who wrote her memoirs in order to pay off her debts, which is a hilarious gesture.

  Alexander Chee

  Inspiration, Order, Debt

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Whenever people say a coincidence in a novel is implausible, I think, Do I have a story for you.

  Alexander Chee

  Thinking, People, Stories

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• I had a naiveté that I would remember the things that I had written already, but I was getting lost in the forest of my own ideas and having to find my way out.

  Alexander Chee

  Ideas, Getting Lost, Way

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The myth works to make the very real things people don't want to look at visible for them.

  Alexander Chee

  Real, People, Looks

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• Most written work is a conversation between the editor and the writer, that the writer essentially fulfills in public, and the editor provides the stage for that to happen as well as the prompts.

  Alexander Chee

  Editors, Stage, Conversation

  Source: therumpus.net

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• As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

  Alexander Chee

  Different, Computer, Scene

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The way some were entrapped into lives of prostitution, the way that something like marriage could rob them of their rights.

  Alexander Chee

  Rights, Way, Prostitution

  Source: therumpus.net

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• As writer pay declined and teacher pay also, we all started hanging out online. You could say online social networks cheapen our friendships or you could say we were cheapened by a plutocratic power grab and this is all we can afford.

  Alexander Chee

  Teacher, Pay, Social Network

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• I realized that my identity as a novelist was private. Only I knew how much of a novelist I was!

  Alexander Chee

  Identity, Novelists, I Realized

  Source: therumpus.net

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• With my family background - my parents were both activists - writing about culture and politics came naturally.

  Alexander Chee

  Writing, Parent, Culture

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• I grew up treating a life as a writer as a career in letters, one devoted to many kinds of writing. And so it seemed normal to study both fiction writing and the literary essay as an undergrad.

  Alexander Chee

  Writing, Careers, Normal

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• It's my experience that people don't think of fiction writing as being as intellectually serious as other kinds of writing in academia and so without a career as a critic or essayist you can be treated as something of a spiritual medium - a fraud - for "just" writing fiction.

  Alexander Chee

  Spiritual, Writing, Thinking

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• The secret to being a rider in the hippodrome wasn't that you must be agile, or that you must be good with horses...It was that you must hide inside your costume a little of a killer's heart.

  Alexander Chee

  Horse, Heart, Secret

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible.

  Alexander Chee

  Character, Possible Change, Limits

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• I knew it was a risk but what I was after was a novel that is about the feeling that comes with a coincidence in real life - that you feel as if something divine has intervened and has arrived with a message.

  Alexander Chee

  Real, Feelings, Risk

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• Throughout my reading life, I've enjoyed many memorable meals-if only fictionally. The oysters at dinner near the beginning of Anna Karenina, the dinner Nana throws for her overflowing guests in Zola's Nana, the walk through Les Halles for breakfast in Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, and nearly every meal in Monique Truong's The Book of Salt.

  Alexander Chee

  Book, Reading, Memorable

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• I've been told it's hard to write about singing. I didn't realize that going into it. I might not have tried if I knew!

  Alexander Chee

  Writing, Singing, Might

  Source: therumpus.net

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• My interest in women's voices started when I was in the boys' choir and we were singing in opera choruses. That was my first close-up experience with the female soprano voice. I was amazed at how it could be within the same scale but so different in quality.

  Alexander Chee

  Boys, Voice, Singing

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Everyone would tell me they couldn't identify with sexual abuse. No one says they can't identify with the tales of the Greek gods and goddesses because they don't live on Mt. Olympus.

  Alexander Chee

  Greek, Abuse, Olympus

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• I was trying to make a novel about something no one wanted to read about into something they couldn't put down or look away from.

  Alexander Chee

  Trying, Looks, Novel

  "Go Forth (Vol. 41)". Interview with Kristen Evans, logger.believermag.com. February 26, 2016.

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• The ideal editor will hold you to the best of yourself in the piece.

  Alexander Chee

  Editors, Pieces, Ideals

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

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