Lydia Davis Quotes - Page 3

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• We all have an ongoing narrative inside our heads, the narrative that is spoken aloud if a friend asks a question. That narrative feels deeply natural to me. We also hang on to scraps of dialogue. Our memories don’t usually serve us up whole scenes complete with dialogue. So I suppose I’m saying that I like to work from what a character is likely to remember, from a more interior place.

  Lydia Davis

  Memories, Character, Ongoing

  "Lydia Davis: I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters". Interview with Sarah Manguso, www.believermag.com. January, 2008.

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• 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.

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• I attempt all day, at work, not to think about what lies ahead, but this costs me so much effort that there is nothing left for my work. I handle telephone calls so badly that after a while the switchboard operator refuses to connect me. So I had better say to myself, Go ahead and polish the silverware beautifully, then lay it out ready on the sideboard and be done with it. Because I polish it in my mind all day long—this is what torments me (and doesn't clean the silver).

  Lydia Davis

  Lying, Thinking, Long

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• I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like to knock other writers as a matter of principle.

  Lydia Davis

  Hurt, People, Feelings

  "Long Story Short" by Dana Goodyear, www.newyorker.com. March 17, 2014.

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