Ron Carlson > Quotes

“I always write from my own experiences, whether I've had them or not.”
― Ron Carlson

“I'm not trying as a writer to be smart or to understand the inner workings of my narrator, I'm trying to survive the typing of this story.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“It is philosophically impossible to be an atheist, since to be an atheist you must have infinite knowledge in order to know absolutely that there is no God. But to have infinite knowledge, you would have to be God yourself. It's hard to be God yourself and an atheist at the same time!”
― Ron Carlson

“The most important thing a writer can do after completing a sentence is to stay in the room. The great temptation is to leave the room to celebrate the completion of the sentence or to go out in the den where the television lies like a dormant monster and rest up for a few days for the next sentence or to go wander the seductive possibilities of the kitchen. But. It's simple. The writer is the person who stays in the room. The writer wants to read what she is in the process of creating with such passion and devotion that she will not leave the room. The writer understand that to stand up from the desk is to fail, and to leave the room is so radical and thorough a failure as to not be reversible. Who is not in the room writing? Everybody. Is it difficult to stay in the room, especially when you are not sure of what you're doing, where you're going? Yes. It's impossible. Who can do it? The writer.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“I tell students, when in doubt, to title their story after the smallest concrete object in their story. I warn them off plays on words, ('The Rent Also Rises'--no; 'Life in My Cat House'--no) and no grand reaches, either. 'Reverence,' 'Respect,' 'Regret,' 'Greed,' 'Adventure,' 'Retribution.' And never use the worst title of all time, 'The Gift,' a story I read six times a year.”
― Ron Carlson

“The literary story is a story that deals with the complicated human heart with an honest tolerance for the ambiguity in which we live.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“Get down, get naked, get savage.”
― Ron Carlson

“We live in a society that doesn’t offer any support or appreciation for ventures that aren’t clearly articulated and aligned for a goal. A writer gets past this. It’s going to be a mess before you’re finished, and you may not have a name for the mess or understand its utilitarian purposes. There aren't words for everything. For now, we’ll call it the draft of a story.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“Can writing ever be taught? The best answer to that was given obliquely by the rock musician David Lee Roth. When asked if money could buy happiness he said, no, but with money you could buy the big boat and go right up to where the people were happy. With a teacher you can go right up to where the writing is done; the leap is made alone with vision, subject, passion, and instinct. So a writer comes to the page with vision in her heart and craft in her hands and a sense of what a story might be in her head. How do the three come together? My thesis is the old one: they merge in the physical writing—inside the act of writing, not from the outside. The process is the teacher.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“It is not my job to explain the story or understand the story or reduce it to a phrase or offer it as being a story about any specific person, place, or thing. My job is to have been true enough to the world of my story that I was able to present it as a forceful and convincing drama. Every story is a kind of puzzle. Many have obvious solutions, and some have no solution at all. We write to present questions, sometimes complicated questions, not to offer easy or not-so-easy answers. Do not be misled by the limited vocabulary the American marketplace uses to describe the possibilities for story and drama. If we’re really writing we are exploring the unnamed emotional facets of the human heart. Not all emotions, not all states of mind have been named. Nor are all the names we have been given always accurate. The literary story is a story that deals with the complicated human heart with an honest tolerance for the ambiguity in which we live. No good guys, no bad guys, just guys: that is, people bearing up the crucible of their days and certainly not always—if ever—capable of articulating their condition.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“I always write from experience, whether I've had them or not.”
― Ron Carlson

“THE TABLECLOTH OF TURIN”
― Ron Carlson, A Kind of Flying

“All of the valuable writing I have done in the last ten years has been done in the first twenty minutes after the first time I wanted to leave the room.”
― Ron Carlson

“The world is glutted with magnificent three-page starts, and the road to hell is paved with unfinished manuscripts.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“When you step out onto the ineffable fabric of your own invention, it is key, essential to act just like that character in the cartoons who steps off the cliff onto the absolute air. Do not look down. You wrote it; you can stand on it to reach for the next thing.”
― Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story

“I was young those nights, but I was getting over it.”
― Ron Carlson, The Hotel Eden: Stories