Quotes from Sigrid Nunez

They don't commit suicide. They don't weep. But they can and do fall to pieces. They can and do have their hearts broken. They can and do lose their minds.

It's not uncommon to wish to have known what a person you've come to love was like before you met them. It hurts, almost, not to have known what a beloved was like as a child. I have felt this way about every man I've ever been in love with, and about many close friends as well, and now it's how I feel about Apollo.

He has to forget you. He has to forget you and fall in love with me. That's what has to happen.

I think it's largely true, what I once heard a famous playwright say, that there are no truly stupid human beings, no uninteresting human lives, and that you'd discover this if you were willing to sit and listen to people.

writing poetry is like prayer, and prayer isn't something you have to share with other people.

Because it's all about the rhythm, you said. Good sentences start with a beat.

No one's memory is infallible, of course - quite the opposite.

I try to write every day, preferably first thing in the morning. Of course, there are days when something happens to interfere with this ideal schedule. Then I try to find time later in the day. I usually work at home, but sometimes, for a change I'll go to a library or a cafe. And I like to read poetry before I sit down to write.

I'm not someone who has a list of great books I would read if I only had the time. If I want to read a particular so-called classic, I go ahead and read it. If I had more time, I would certainly read more, but I'd read the way I always do - that is, I'd read whatever happened to interest me, not necessarily classics.

You might not remember what you had for dinner last night, but you remember everything about one particular summer of your youth. It's like that.

You don't sit there at twenty-five, unpublished, inexperienced, and respond to Susan Sontag's editorial suggestions like a little snot, rejecting every one of them. But it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn't admire Susan's own fiction.

Unfortunately, I was like a lot of my own students, who don't really want criticism, just encouragement.

Read as much as possible, especially the work of writers who most deeply affect you. Make those writers your family. Never wait for inspiration to strike before getting to work; be disciplined and form the habit of writing every day.