Peter Orner Quotes - Page 2

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• My characters tend to be people who are looking back on a life lived, their joys, their regrets.

  Peter Orner

  Regret, Character, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  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

• 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 used to be surprised and a little annoyed when characters would reappear in my mind, itching to be in another story. Now I realize it's part of the deal, that you create these people out of thin air but then, if you do it right, they actually live.

  Peter Orner

  Character, Air, People

  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

• I write by hand in my notebooks and number the drafts, so I know how crazy I can get with this. Some writers, like my teacher Marilynne Robinson, she only writes one draft. I've thought about this a lot; I think it's because she writes it 80 times in her head before it comes out.

  Peter Orner

  Notebook, Teacher, Crazy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• 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

• As a professor I can't teach writing.

  Peter Orner

  Writing, Teach

  4 Copy quote

• We don't want emotion handed to us - that's not emotion. You have to build and come from the reader's soul.

  Peter Orner

  Soul, Emotion

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I feel like there are too many words in the world, and I think silence is so much more powerful than the glut of words.

  Peter Orner

  Powerful, Thinking, Silence

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I'm constantly trying to figure out how to crack that mystery; how to make a novel that has a sense of immediacy of a short story. I try to do that and I'll try it again, but I'll never get it.

  Peter Orner

  Trying, Mystery, Novel

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• A novel is like a long relationship and a short story is a brief one that lingers - it lingers powerfully and maybe more powerfully. I think that's true in a lot of cases, most long-term relationships compared to some of the briefer ones - the intensity of those brief ones that end, I think a short story is kind of like that. There's a certain level of intensity that I think is different.

  Peter Orner

  Thinking, Long, Different

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

  Peter Orner

  Book, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Maybe my work is somewhat divided into family stories, things I know intimately, and then everybody else in the world - the strangers who I am totally fascinated with.

  Peter Orner

  World, Stranger

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I usually have a location and then I put the character there. I love place names. I think I'm tricking myself by being so specific - it suddenly becomes real to me. Just because I say it's Chicago, Illinois doesn't mean it's true, but place names sort of make me grounded and then I can put some people there.

  Peter Orner

  Real, Character, Mean

  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

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