Quotes About David Shields

I do not think it feasible to examine the phenomenon of hatefulness without being hateful.

I'm really interested in the new nonfiction. I think the hyper-digital culture has changed our brains in ways we cannot begin to fathom.

A book makes claims of literary art.

I'm drawn to literature instead as a form of thinking

Is it possible that contemporary literary prizes are a bit like the federal bailout package, subsidizing work that is no longer remotely describing reality?

I admire your work and was a big fan of your lecture, so the misunderstanding between us is particularly painful to me. I take these issues very seriously and am, I think, alert to nuances in this regard, as I hope my work demonstrates.

The thing I hate the most in any kind of writing is self-righteousness. Where you pretend you don't have the same kinds of flaws your subject has.

I have a teaching job that allows me to pay the rent and affords me to, frankly, write the books I want to write.

Seattle's not a particularly Jewish city, and I'm not in any way religious. Since I've been here, I've been a fairly productive, even obsessively productive, writer.

I'm not super-polite or civil - I try to be civil, but I'm not into Seattle's niceties, and I'm not hugely wired into Seattle's natural beauty.

I am exhausted by traditional memoir. I am exhausted by the architecture of the conventional novel.

The reigning mythology of the Northwest is obviously nature, and the reigning mythology of the Northeast corridor is culture.

Her handwriting was sweeping, immaculate, breathless.