Tom Bissell Quotes

• To create anything… is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic.

  Tom Bissell

  Believe, Magic, Ifs

  Tom Bissell (2012). “Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation”, p.16, McSweeney's

  45 Copy quote

• A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.

  Tom Bissell

  Writing, Wish, Doe

  "Truth in Oxiana". Article by Tom Bissell, www.worldhum.com. February 15, 2006.

  16 Copy quote

• Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer-so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible.

  Tom Bissell

  Seductive, Impossible, Imitation

  15 Copy quote

• We are no longer worried that children are missing school because of video games, though. We are worried that they are murdering their classmates because of video games.

  Tom Bissell

  Children, School, Games

  13 Copy quote

• Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self.

  Tom Bissell

  Book, Reading, Thinking

  25 Copy quote

• Fun is not the same thing as fulfillment.

  Tom Bissell

  Fun, Fulfillment

  6 Copy quote

• When I play too many video games I begin to feel chubby-minded, caffeinated, bad.

  Tom Bissell

  Games, Play, Video

  4 Copy quote

• Most non-readers are nothing but an agglomeration of third-hand opinion and blindly received wisdom.

  Tom Bissell

  Hands, Opinion, Reader

  4 Copy quote

• Girlfriends, indeed: the anti-video game.

  Tom Bissell

  Girlfriend, Games, Video

  4 Copy quote

• An artist can respect the backfield of fact before which every human being stands and choose not to address those facts.

  Tom Bissell

  Artist, Addresses, Facts

  Tom Bissell (2012). “Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation”, p.174, McSweeney's

  4 Copy quote

• To create anything — whether a short story or a magazine profile or a film or a sitcom — is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic. These essays are about that magic — which is sometimes perilous, sometimes infectious, sometimes fragile, sometimes failed, sometimes infuriating, sometimes triumphant, and sometimes tragic. I went up there. I wrote. I tried to see.

  Tom Bissell

  Believe, Magic, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• [M]y first published book had just appeared in stores. The last year of my life-the year of finishing it, editing it, and seeing it through its various page-proof passes-ranks among the most unnerving of my young life. It has not felt good, or freeing. It has felt nerve-shreddingly disquieting. Publication simply allows one that much more to worry about. This cannot be said to aspiring writers often or sternly enough. Whatever they carry within themselves they believe publication cures will not, I can all but guarantee, be cured. You just wind up with new diseases.

  Tom Bissell

  Believe, Book, Editing

  4 Copy quote

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