Quotes from John Dufresne

You wouldn't be here if you didn't want to write, so let's write. We'll chat later. Get out your pen and paper or fire up the computer. Pour yourself a coffee. Unplug the phone. Once you start, you can't stop. Give yourself a half hour. Relax. Don't think too much. You're starting a journey, and you don't know where you're going. But you do know you're going someplace you haven't been before.

Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved.

Disregard can be an act of violence.

I am in a sorry state, for I do not even know what I do not know. —St. Augustine

At 9:15 on Thursday morning, June 4, while Jordan Delreese was bludgeoning his two young children to death, I was sitting in Dr. Hamburger's consulting room at the Sunny Isles Geriatric Clinic with my father, who was just then at a loss for words.

The facts, however, are unimportant in fiction. It's not the events of my life that I mine, but the emotional experiences I've had.

I lost my job and started painting houses with a friend. The marriage had ended about the same time the career did.

I learned to love stories by listening to them.

Every person in therapy has a love disorder.

Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential.

Fiction begins with the senses, and the senses go to work in a place.

Writing a story, you understand, is not done by consensus. But we do learn from each other, and we remind ourselves how important this work we're doing is.

There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves.