Quotes from David Bergen

I think my writing was certainly shaped from having lived in a place like Niverville as well as by the family that I came from, the religion that I had, that type of thing.

In my brief writing life, it means I am still lucky that I have at least one more novel to complete. I do not expect that a story will arrive just because it is time to write another novel. It doesn't happen that way.

Invite characters of surprising and moral character, or at least those who grapple with what is right or those who make decisions that shock.

The most difficult part of being a mother was to observe the mistakes of one's children: the foolish loves, the desperate solitude and alienation, the lack of will, the gullibility, the joyous and naive leaps into the unknown, the ignorance, the panicky choices and the utter determination.

Hope had finally learned to live in the present. Often, when she found herself in a space of tremendous comfort, usually out in nature, or when her children were safe all around her and on the verge of going to bed, she forced herself to take stock. Here you are, Hope, she told herself. What a beautiful moment. You may never again be here at this spot, enjoying the calm. This habit of hers, to acknowledge the immediate and elusive joy of the present, kept her sane.

Her mother had once told her that one could run away from home, from husband, from children, from trouble, but it was impossible to run away from oneself. "You always have to take yourself with you," she said. And now, bending towards her mother, Hope wondered if in death you were finally able to run away from yourself. This might be death's gift. She knew that the thought wasn't terribly profound, but she was moved by the notion of completion and of escape.

Words mean nothing. They are like the husks of the coffee Bean. They cover what is essential, which is the bean itself, and when the husks are discarded, they lie on the road and rot and disappear. Actions are what lie inside, like the bean.

Morris had been raised a Mennonite stoic in a tribe that wasn't a tribe at all, but more a failed cult whose main sources of entertainment were music, wordplay, and suffering.

She left feeling dirty, and on the bus ride home she knew that what her uncles told her had come true: she had been attracted to an object that was beautiful, and she had become spellbound, and then its shape had changed, and what had appeared beautiful had turned ugly.

I believe we are most alive when we are being thought about by others who love us.

Marcie talked about her life, and she talked about the courses she was taking. She told Lily that she was a feminist and she said that women had to take back the space that men had stolen from them. She talked about her body. She talked about ownership. She said that she was proud of her period, and Lily thought that this was the oddest thing to be proud of. She herself wasn't ashamed of it, but she hadn't ever thought it worth discussing.

Keep the fire in the kitchen to see if it outlasts the storms and rain outside.

Because they're free. -They might look free, but they aren't. Believe me. You're free. -How am I free? -You're free to be modest. You're free to not smoke up. You're free to be here and listen and not respond to the nonsense that Hanna spouts. You're very calm, and you're very comfortable with yourself.

You have to be colder. Then he will come to you. The more you pull, she said, the more he'll run. A boy, a man, he is like an untrained dog who thinks that because you don't allow him to sniff the pole over there, that pole is the most precious spot in the world. Let him go, she said. And he will come running back.

They saw the world in different ways. For him, life was like a story that had answers, or a conclusion that made sense. For her, the story was sinuous and unclear, and if there was happiness to be had, it might arrive announced, or it might land in the arms of another person.

And what would you do if you lost a child? -I would think I was going to die, Elena said. But I wouldn't. I learned long ago that I must give up my child to the earth, to God, to the world, to death, to the possibility of death, to the possibility of disease, and in doing so I became at peace. Because I had let my child go. And in letting the child go, I became colder, more distant, and more at peace. But I still loved the child, don't be wrong. As you love your child. I am sorry.

I like characters who are contradictory.

In 1970, at the age of 14, I entered a short story contest offering a grand prize of one dollar. I won. This was my first foray into writing fiction. I loved reading and thought that it shouldn't be so hard to write a story.

It took me ten years to write a proper story. I floundered about trying to shape something, counting on the 'feeling' I had as I wrote, only to discover upon rereading my work that the feeling had disappeared, and what remained was an empty shell.

The IMPAC is a terribly important award.

The story wrote quickly. I called it 'Where You're From,' and I sent it out, as I had numerous other stories over the years. Except this time I got a letter back saying that it would be published. Someone out there had liked the story. I was thirty-one years old.

I tend to push whatever is looking over my shoulder away when I am writing. It's once the box of books arrive that I say I'm going to be pilloried for this or that. But then you realize it's done, and there is nothing I can do. I'm proud of the book.

Though I loved books as a young boy, I loved sports even more. I wanted to be a quarterback in the CFL.

I was a big reader of Zane Grey as a young boy, and so horses and the West figured large in my imagination.