Quotes from Leslie Jamison

Whenever we feel shame, it's a mark of some deep investment or deep internal struggle.

Somebody once asked me how I define sobriety, and my response was 'liberation from dependence.'

Though there might not be any easy answers to the problem of poverty, its most compelling scribes do not resign themselves to representation solely for the sake of those age-old verities of truth and beauty.

Shame doesn't exist as an emotion without the projected or perceived sense of judgment coming from somewhere else.

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.

Though there might not be any easy answers to the problem of poverty, its most compelling scribes do not resign themselves to representation solely for the sake of those age-old verities of truth and beauty.

I don't make films, and because I don't make films, I'm not an expert in the craft of bringing a film into the world, how you put its various pieces together. But where I feel like I'm an expert is my own feelings in response to a film.

We think we should have to work in order to feel. We want to have our cake resist us; and then we want to eat it, too.

I've been lucky enough to work with extraordinary teachers along the way, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with graduate students at SNHU. I'm just as excited for what I'll learn from them.

Whenever I've been stuck on a project, it's always brought me solace to the return to books that moved me in the past. It's a nice way to get outside my own head; and it brings me back to one of the most important reasons I write at all: to bring some pleasure to readers, to make them think or feel.

Redeeming subjects from cliche is its own pleasure and privilege.