Quotes from Sigrid Nunez

Rather than, say, Toni Morrison, who called basing a character on a real person an infringement of copyright. A person owns his life, she says. It's not for another to use it for fiction.

Are you a political prisoner, Dooley? Her blue eyes, immense now in her gaunt face, turned a pitying gaze on the reporter who'd asked her this. Yes, she said. And so are you.

What we miss—what we lose and what we mourn—isn't it this that makes us who, deep down, we truly are. To say nothing of what we wanted in life but never got to have.

No writing is ever wasted, you used to say. Even if something doesn't work out and you end up throwing it away, as a writer you always learn something. Here

How good is his memory? If very good, as dogs' memories are said to be, what grief being locked up alone might bring him. And - heart-shredding thought - is it still for you that he waits by the door?)

No matter how hard we try to put the most important things into words, it is always like toe-dancing in clogs.

Rather than write about what you know, you told us, write about what you see. Assume that you know very little and that you'll never know much until you learn how to see.

George Balanchine said, If you put a group of men on the stage, you have a group of men, but if you put a group of women on the stage you have the whole world.

This would explain much of human suffering, according to my ex, who was being less playful than you might think. He really did believe that's how it was: each of us languaging on, our meaning clear to ourselves but to nobody else. Even people in love? I asked, smilingly, teasingly, hopefully. This was at the very beginning of our relationship. He only smiled back. But years later, at the bitter end, came the bitter answer: People in love most of all. —

Any writer worth his salt knows that only a small proportion of literature does more than partly compensate people for the damage they have suffered in learning to read. Rebecca West.

When do people ever like it when you write about them? But I had to do something. As I said, from the minute I heard what had happened I could not stop thinking about it. So I did what you do if you're a writer and you're obsessed about something: you turn it into a story that you hope will lay it to rest, or at least help you figure it out what it means. Even if we know from experience that this pretty much never works.

You write a thing down because you're hoping to get a hold on it. You write about experiences partly to understand what they mean, partly not to lose them to time. To oblivion.

What do dogs think when they see someone cry? Bred to be comforters, they comfort us. But how puzzling human unhappiness must be to them. We who can fill our dishes any time and with as much food as we like, who can go outside whenever we wish, and run free - we who have no master constantly needling to be pleased, or obeyed.

I think of the story of Hachik? the Akita, who used to go to Tokyo's Shibuya Station to meet the train that brought his master home from work every day—until one day the man died suddenly and Hachik? waited in vain. But the next day, and every day after that, for nearly ten years, the dog appeared at the station to meet the train at the usual hour.

I like that the Aborigines say dogs make people human. Also (though I can't remember who said it): The thing that keeps me from becoming a complete misanthrope is seeing how much dogs love men.

Woman A often thinks about growing old. At the same time, she often thinks back to those years when old age seemed a very distant thing, more like an option than a law of nature.

Golden hour, magic hour, l'heure bleue. Evenings when the beauty of the changing sky made us both go still and dreamy. Sunlight falling at an angle across the lawn so that it touched our elevated feet, then moved up our bodies like a long slow blessing.

It would undo me, I think, to glimpse some familiar piece of clothing, or a certain book or photograph, or to catch a hint of your smell. And I don't want to be undone like that, oh my God, not with your widow standing by.

Who doesn't know that the dog is the epitome of devotion? But it's this devotion to humans, so instinctual that it's given freely even to persons who are unworthy of it, that has made me prefer cats. Give me a pet that can get along without me.

A friend of mine who is working on a memoir says, I hate the idea of writing as some kind of catharsis, because it seems like that can't possibly produce a good book. You cannot hope to console yourself for your grief by writing, warns Natalia Ginzburg. Turn then to Isak Dinesen, who believed that you could make any sorrow bearable by putting it into a story or telling a story about it.

What exactly did Simone Weil mean when she said, When you have to make a decision in life, about what you should do, do what will cost you the most. Do what is difficult because it is difficult. Do what will cost you the most. Who were these people?

I like that the Aborigines say dogs make people human

In a book I am reading the author talks about word people versus fist people. As if words could not also be fists. Aren't often fists.

It's because a person has a sense of humor that we feel we can trust them, says Milan Kundera.)