Quotes from Jerry Cleaver

Anytime you don't have a picture in your head, you're in trouble or will be soon.

Identification is why the reader reads and why the writer writes. We all want to identify with a character, so that we can, in turn, identify with ourselves. Do you have yourself all figured out? Is your self-knowledge so complete? Do you know yourself so well that you'll never do anyting stupid or make a fool of yourself again? When it comes to knowing ourselves, we are incomplete, lacking, deficient. Each of us is our own ongoing problem until the day we die.

Write what you know? No. Write what you can imagine. After all, imagining is knowing—a special kind of knowing that can reveal as much or more truth than our real experience.

In this game, mistakes and errors are good. They help us uncover new relationships.

A good story cannot be denied. Like falling in love, it's irresistible. It hits you before you have time to think. It touches your heart before it reaches your head.

stories aren't ideas. They're not concepts or definitions. They're experience.

Identification is the goal not only of every story but of every life. It's our deepest social need.

Actually, we are the worst for not letting go, for not valuing emptiness, randomness, for not seeing the value of not knowing.

A complete story is the most fulfilling, because it has the shape of our most meaningful experience. Whether

Your job is to learn to create drama. Once you can do that, you can do anything.