Quotes from Jami Attenberg

I didn't go to graduate school, where all the important writers seemed to be getting their start. I didn't pursue getting published in literary magazines. I didn't even send out countless pitch letters and manuscripts to agents.

We've all got flesh. I've just got a little more.

I don't know if I had ever found my place in the world until I fully committed to being a writer.

Why e-mail a full emotional statement when, instead, you can text a totally insignificant and ambiguous half-considered phrase?

As creative people, we should be really conscious of being of service in our work, being as generous as we can.

I know the bestseller 'Gone Girl' doesn't need an ounce of support from me, but that book was as sharp and witty as they come.

For years I'd thought my color was black: deep, dark, thoughtful, mysterious. Black, you can hide behind. But now I know it is red.

There's something to be said for an author who clearly respects a reader.

My grandmother died when my mother was just 11 years old, and consequently, my mother never learned how to cook particularly well.

There are a lot of great things about food, but it's something that's an eternal struggle in our contemporary society, where and how food is made, where it's coming from, how much to consume. There are so many layers to it.

Most of my writer friends are women, and they're all extremely talented, so of course I think the state of contemporary fiction for women is pretty great. Which is to say there is a ton of amazing work out there. These women are writing hard. There's much to be said. We're on it, chief.

I did get in a few fights in school. Kids threw around anti-Semitic slurs, not knowing necessarily what they meant. It was probably just something they picked up somewhere, as kids do.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is a breezy, big-hearted treat, especially if you've ever wondered about the inner workings of America's national treasures--neighborhood bookstores.

I had always loved life on the road. It was just something that appealed to me very deeply.

In its current incarnation in my life touring is a lot of airports and hotels and car services and only OK food.

In the past, I was sometimes put in this women's lit category, and I was never really sure that was the appropriate place for me - although I certainly recognize it can be helpful and correct for other people.

I won't go anywhere near the new Times Square. It's seizure-inducing.

No matter how much money I made from writing, I'd keep the bookstore job.

When we are young - or even 32 - we often say 'yes' to everything because we're worried that we won't know what we'll like if we don't try it.

I think when you first start out, you're writing books that are about your immediate place.

For years I drove cross-country, back and forth a dozen times, sometimes on book tour, sometimes just to get lost and found.

I feel a bigger sense of fulfillment when writing a novel, and short stories are more about instant gratification.

I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end.

Some journal writers choose to password-protect their site, which is either an incredibly responsible act or a paranoid one.