Quotes from David Means

I write first drafts by hand, often out of the house somewhere, and then, when I've got a draft, type it up and let it sit, sometimes for a long time, and then when I'm ready, I work on revision.

A kiss is often about the future and the past. A lost dream, about the discretion of the idealism.

I think that those moments before a performer plays are the moments when the potential for something to be created may - or may not - arrive.

A good folk song tells you something you already know, in a form you're already familiar with, on terms that were set down long before you were born - when the country was primarily windblown dust, open wagon trains, and dysfunctional towns like Deadwood.

Typically, I spend a lot of time - mostly in the morning - kind of drifting, reading, walking down along the river, looking at photographs, or even driving around. Then, if I'm lucky, I get to work in the early afternoon, one way or another.

I was a kid who was born and raised on Johnny Cash. My father played 'At Folsom Prison' constantly. Cash was the only thing I remember coming from our big, warm stereo console. Even then, I knew Cash was uncool. I knew he was an unhip Republican.

From George Martin's classically inspired production of the Beatles to Peter Gabriel's early solo masterpieces, to Stereolab's beautiful loops and blips, U.K.-based bands have often found a way to squeeze warmth and compassion from the stone-cold - especially now that the tubes are gone - machinery of the recording studio.

Wars never simply end, not for those in combat and not for the culture, and one way or another, they shape-shift from generation to generation.

I don't want to be a commentator of my own work. If you've written the story, you've said what you want to say.

We are the graceless and dumbfounded, insane with our own insatiable desire for another time and place.

If there is a God, he thought, I'll speak directly to him when the time comes, and if there isn't a God I'll have to invent one, and I'll find a way to thank him for the way I feel when I watch her move.

In an average life lived by a relatively average soul, what else remains but singular moments of astonishingly framed light?

I was an at-home father, taking care of them for seven years when they were babies. I was one of those new-age, at-home dads.

I like landscape, I guess. It's kind of a game to see how you can describe it.

In the days following 9/11, when we were reeling and disoriented, there was a kind of solace to be found in old recordings, and even pseudo-folk singers like James Taylor seemed to be safeguarding something, drawing back bygone days.

What I appreciate about Radiohead's work - and it's most evident in 'Hail to the Thief' - is how the juxtaposition of narratives on the band's albums somehow creates a sense of wholeness.

We believe in cures; we're a quick-fix country, and we drive forward, and we eat up what we have extremely fast in terms of natural resources and also ideas and intellectual property. We're kind of wilfully stupid a lot of the time, anti-intellectual.

Iggy Pop is a pure Michigan product - gritty, smart, but not afraid of looking stupid or foolish. His father was once a high school English teacher. I love Iggy as a physical entity, sinewy, twisty - even in old age - an embodiment of rock and roll history.

Folk songs, whatever else they might be, are mainly craft.

My characters - no, make that most characters - are seeking the shelter of narrative resolution, a place of quiet and grace.

I'm not sure if a writer should talk about themes. Themes arrive out of the deeper structure and concerns, but to me, the main thing is getting it down right, writing about specific characters in specific predicaments, and finding a way to be true to the story itself, not only in the first burst of draft but in the revision, too.

Novels often thin themselves out to a watery hue - some even start that way - and at times seem to only ride along the surface of things, giving us what we already know, reporting the news that is just news.

The wonderful thing about being an American writer is you've got this vastness to draw from.

A short story collection can be as exciting as a novel. It is a real complete experience, like when you listen to a real good recording, a Beatles record, and there are so many good songs.