Peter Orner Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• As a professor I can't teach writing.

  Peter Orner

  Writing, Teach

  4 Copy quote

• I agonize over things like this - the order of things, section titles, all this architectural sort of stuff. Takes me years to figure out.

  Peter Orner

  Order, Years, Titles

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• A collection, for me, is a book of very diverse stories that somehow speak to each other, across wide geography, across time, years, decades.

  Peter Orner

  Book, Years, Stories

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I'm pretty tight - I rewrite, in some cases, 70 to 80 times before I show it to people.

  Peter Orner

  People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Everybody, doesn't matter who you are, escapes time. And for me, nothing is stranger than the thought that kids are just kids. Nobody is just anything. Whether you are eight or eighty, you've got your own unique take on how weird this world is.

  Peter Orner

  Kids, Unique, Eight

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I write when I have something to say and not when I don't. My time is better spent if I know I have nothing to say. I don't consider it writer's block; I just don't have anything to say.

  Peter Orner

  Block, Writing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• What you can do with a short story that you can't do with a novel is punch someone in the gut, in the best of ways.

  Peter Orner

  Novel, Short Story, Guts

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• My first book came out again - the re-issue from 2001. I was rereading it to make sure that I didn't miss any mistakes, and I didn't know who had written some of these stories. I really didn't. I am a different person now. It's weird. I think if stories are good, they have to have a life of their own that's independent of the writer. I like to think of my characters out there in other peoples' heads. That's a nice thing to think about.

  Peter Orner

  Mistake, Nice, Book

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I beat a story to within an inch of its life - that's when I know its done. Not before, not after.

  Peter Orner

  Stories, Done, Beats

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• One story I've been trying to write for years, and haven't been able to finish, is about a face I saw, just a glimpse of a face, in a max security prison in North Carolina. I'm still trying to understand what I saw in that guy's face.

  Peter Orner

  Writing, Years, Guy

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Lot of stories in deceit, how characters deceive other people, but most of all, I think, how they deceive themselves. We're not as tricky as we think we are.

  Peter Orner

  Character, Thinking, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I've spent so many years living in one place and imaging another.

  Peter Orner

  Years, Imaging

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I always say writing fiction isn't something you teach. It's something you do, and only experimentation - i.e. doing it, either badly or good sometimes - can help anybody get any better or worse at it.

  Peter Orner

  Writing, Fiction, Helping

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories.

  Peter Orner

  Writing, Thinking, Shopping

  Source: therumpus.net

  5 Copy quote

• I sometimes wonder if our memories are a myth. We think we remember, but we are remembering the story and not the actual event?

  Peter Orner

  Memories, Thinking, Remember

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

• I think that maybe happy families don't need stories the way unhappy families need stories. Maybe they're too busy living that they don't actually step back and talk about life like the Anton Chekhov quote. I prefer Anton Chekhov to Lev Tolstoy, and the reason is because of what he leaves out. Sometimes I think Tolstoy had a theory that he was proving and he proved it. Chekhov is more ambiguous.

  Peter Orner

  Thinking, Unhappy, Sometimes

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I try not to read my own books just because I would rather read somebody else.

  Peter Orner

  Book, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I think some writers should wait for something to say.

  Peter Orner

  Thinking, Waiting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

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