Latest Michael Chabon Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I hate to see great works of literature ghettoized, whereas others that conform to the rules, conventions, and procedures of the genre we call literary fiction get accorded greater esteem and privilege. I also have a problem with how books are marketed, with certain cover designs and typefaces. They're often stamped with an identity that has nothing to do with their effect on the reader.

  Michael Chabon

  Hate, Book, Design

  Interview with Elizabeth Benefiel, www.avclub.com. July 5, 2007.

• I might spend 100 pages trying to get to know the world I'm writing about: its contours, who are my main characters, what are their relationships to each other, and just trying to get a sense of what and who this book is about. Usually around that point of 100 pages, I start to feel like I'm lost, I have too much material, it's time to start making some choices. It's typically at that point that I sit down and try to make a formal outline and winnow out what's not working and what I'm most interested in, where the story seems to be going.

  Michael Chabon

  Book, Writing, Character

  Interview with Elizabeth Benefiel, www.avclub.com. July 5, 2007.

• I don't have a problem with many uses of the word genre, just certain ones. I have the most trouble when these labels are used to prevent discussion, to prevent a work from being taken seriously as literature. When we say "genre," we generally mean "something crappy," something that would be sold in an airport.

  Michael Chabon

  Taken, Mean, Airports

  Interview with Elizabeth Benefiel, www.avclub.com. July 5, 2007.

• All the preparation in the world doesn't avail you if you can't make that imaginative leap and put yourself in the position of the characters you've created, to imagine what it's like to be somebody else.

  Michael Chabon

  Character, Preparation, World

  Interview with Elizabeth Benefiel, www.avclub.com. July 5, 2007.

• When I first decided I wanted to be a writer, when I was 10, 11 years old, the books that I loved obviously and openly fit that description: They came with maps and glossaries and timelines - books like Lord Of The Rings, Dune, The Chronicles Of Narnia. I imagined that's what being a writer was: You invented a world, and you did it in a very detailed way, and you told stories that were set in that world.

  Michael Chabon

  Book, Years, Stories

  Interview with Elizabeth Benefiel, www.avclub.com. July 5, 2007.

• For me, nostalgia is an involuntary emotion. ... I think it's just a natural human response to loss.

  Michael Chabon

  Loss, Thinking, Emotion

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September 2012.

• I do have a collection of mid-century, small-press science fiction and fantasy hardcovers that is my most focused and dedicated collection. Everything else I tend more to acquire or amass than collect. I have vinyl records I listen to all the time when I work. But I don’t collect records. I just buy records where the price seems right and it’s music I actually listen to.

  Michael Chabon

  Fiction, Records, Fantasy

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September 2012.

• I love the internet and it has been incredibly useful and I have made discoveries that have been immeasurably crucial to my work- things I don’t know how I ever would have found out otherwise, that are perfect, just what I need for whatever I’m doing.

  Michael Chabon

  Writing, Discovery, Perfect

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September, 2012.

• Procrastination is something you do yourself. You know: "I gotta sharpen these pencils before I start. I got 20 pencils, they're looking kinda dull." Well, the pencils aren't calling you and alluring you and inviting you and offering you anything. They're just sitting there. You're the one who's procrastinating.

  Michael Chabon

  Procrastination, Offering, Dull

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September 2012.

• That's why school was invented - to give your parents some peace and quiet during the day.

  Michael Chabon

  School, Giving, Parent

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September, 2012.

• [While writing], I'll go anywhere I find that is quiet, has no internet. I have a big internet problem.

  Michael Chabon

  Writing, Quiet, Problem

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September 2012.

• When I'm writing solitude feels very good. But when I'm not writing it feels lonely... Having a big family solves that problem.

  Michael Chabon

  Lonely, Writing, Solitude

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September, 2012.

• I have a good memory for words, and when I come upon a word I don't know, I remember it, or try to - it's almost like a tic.

  Michael Chabon

  Memories, Trying, Remember

  "Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September 2012.

• I don't do a lot of foisting, because when it comes to books I don't really like to be foisted upon.

  Michael Chabon

  Book

  "Michael Chabon’s Nonfiction Picks". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. May 11, 2010.

• I'm never going to be a Tom Clancy. And I wouldn't really want to be - not that I have anything against him, and I wish him continued success - because that's not why I'm writing novels. I'm doing it because I have to. I feel like I have to, anyway.

  Michael Chabon

  Writing, Wish, Want

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.

• For me, the goal is always to write a novel that I myself would like to read. People frequently ask me what my favorite book is, and in effect, there's always a capital-F Favorite, capital-B Book that I would like to write myself someday. I try to go for that ideal of writing the best, most entertaining, most beautifully written book that I possibly can.

  Michael Chabon

  Book, Writing, Goal

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.

• The problems you have as a novelist tend to have to do with making a living and trying to find ways to supplement the income you get from writing novels. For a lot of writers, that involves teaching. In my case, so far, I've been able to get by working in Hollywood with this TV stuff I've been doing. And it's very important, because my wife is a writer, too, and we don't have health insurance through any employer.

  Michael Chabon

  Teaching, Writing, Wife

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.

• There's something inherently more appealing about the idea that you could reveal and tell stories about characters over the course of a TV season - 13 or 26 episodes, whatever it might be - than in the course of one two-hour movie. You can do so many more novelistic kinds of things on a TV show - with time, with gradual development of relationships, and so on - than you could possibly do in a movie. And that is very appealing.

  Michael Chabon

  Character, Tv Shows, Ideas

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.

• I feel that in the past, my style has shown itself to be capable of handling dark and light in the same paragraph, or even in the same sentence. That's something I almost take for granted. I think it was more a concern to get the details right and persuasively recreate the world I was trying to write about.

  Michael Chabon

  Writing, Dark, Thinking

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.

• I don't think you could teach someone to be a genius, but you can certainly teach them to not make rookie mistakes and to look at writing the way a writer looks at writing, and not just the way a reader looks at writing. There are a lot of techniques and skills that can be taught that will be helpful to anybody, no matter how gifted they are, and I think writing programs can be very good for people.

  Michael Chabon

  Mistake, Writing, Thinking

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 22, 2000.