Carolyn See > Quotes

“Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version.”
― Carolyn See

“You can go a surprisingly long time without figuring out the kind of person you are and in what direction your life is taking you.”
― Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers

“It's my experience that you first feel the impulse to write in your chest. It's like falling in love, only more so. It feels like something criminal. It feels like unspeakably wild sex. So, think: When you feel the overpowering need to go out and find some unspeakably wild sex, do you rush to tell your mom about it?”
― Carolyn See

“Yes, I do think the ruling class in America would like to grab everything for themselves, because they were brought up that way, and early American Puritans somehow had it wired into their religion that poverty is a sign that God doesn't like you, that you're not "saved," that money, on the other hand, is a sign of God's approval. They say the middle class in this country is shrinking, but I don't really know who the "they" is in that sentence. I tend to think there's a natural process of balances -- that when the very rich press their luck too far, there's a danger of a backlash, and the rich know it. There's often a time when the bully on the playground does one bad thing too many and all the little weaklings gang up on him, and that's the end of that particular pattern. I look at that stuff as a novelist, and as a human being, but I try not to get too worked up about it. I think of myself as wearing the invisible tee shirt with "You can kill me but you can't impress me" printed on it. Every second I spend laughing is a second I don't have to think about Vice President Cheney, for instance.”
― Carolyn See

“I used to worry about exclamation marks, but what the hell. Sometimes I feel some enthusiasm. So I put in an exclamation point. About five years ago, I began to question the whole concept of "improvement." I think I'm done being "improved." That's part of my prose style, and I'm certainly not going to change it now. And I may lose weight or get my wardrobe finally in order, but the chances on all that are low. "I yam what I yam," as Popeye says.”
― Carolyn See

“Everyone in the world should read this book... We should read it to learn about the world and what it means to be human. ”
― Carolyn See

“Wake up! Keep waking up! Wake up more and more often!”
― Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers

“I don't think there are villains in this world. There are plenty of people who have been broken by life -- so seriously damaged that they often behave like beasts or worse, but that's the fault of their wiring or their circumstances or both. I think, perhaps, of my stepfather, who was treated so shabbily by my mother: There was a huge battle for control in that relationship and then he lost the war. And then he behaved very badly indeed. Plenty of people have faulty wiring. Or maybe they just hate their life, and then lash out. But any of that can change at any time. We love to cast people as devils because then that lets us off the hook. But I don't think life is really like that.”
― Carolyn See

“If you think finding the right place just happens, you've got another think.”
― Carolyn See, Golden Days

“Just to put it in a political perspective, zealots in the Middle East didn't just wake up one day and say, let's have some fun and blow up the Twin Towers! There was a history behind it -- Britain in the twenties, doing its Empire thing, then leaving when things got too hot, but leaving Persians, Arabs and so on with a mighty sense of having been ripped off and humiliated. People hold grudges -- we all have that trait, I think. Then we try to set things "right" and just make things worse. So people go to war. Add to that the fact that men have a tendency toward aggression, and women have a huge capacity for passive revenge, and you have a nice mix. And yet, the world is so beautiful! And always surprising. That's the cosmic goofy wonder of it all. . .”
― Carolyn See

“It’s only four pages, five days a week. It won’t kill you. You can’t “fall behind” and you can’t “get ahead.” Every day is a new one thousand words.”
― Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers

“Finally, it was the city that held us, the city they said had no center, that all of us had come to from all over America because this was the place to find dreams and pleasure and love. I noticed--looking at headlines--that some cities emptied and some didn't. Ours didn't, not completely.”
― Carolyn See, Golden Days

“But I say there was a race of hardy laughers, mystics, crazies, who knew their real homes, or who had been drawn to this gold coast for years, and they lived through the destroying light, and on, into Light ages.”
― Carolyn See, Golden Days

“Because under his sedate blazer and his knobby chest, there beat a heart, remember, that loved the tango.”
― Carolyn See, Golden Days