Jonathan Dee Quotes

• More than periods where I don't write anything, I have periods where I just write junk and I know I'm writing junk but I can't stop.

  Jonathan Dee

  Writing, Junk, Periods

  "Jonathan Dee's Art Of Apology". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 4, 2013.

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• Novels are a kind of experiment in selfhood, for the reader as well as for the author.

  Jonathan Dee

  Kind, Novel, Wells

  "Five Questions for Jonathan Dee" by Macy Halford, www.newyorker.com. August 30, 2010.

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• You never want to have to give your child bad news of any kind.

  Jonathan Dee

  Niños, Dar, Querer

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• One of my favorite pieces of advice about being a writer came from a very formative teacher I had as an undergraduate, named John Hersey. On our last day of class together, which was also John Hersey last day before retirement, he said, "Remember, the world doesn't need any new writers." Which at first didn't seem like great advice, but when you unpacked it, it was really that it's not enough to be confident in what you do; be conscious of bringing something to the world of readers and writers that it hasn't seen before. Something idiosyncratic.

  Jonathan Dee

  Teacher, Retirement, Advice

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The first draft of everything, I write longhand. One of the nice things about that is that it makes you keep going. If you write a bad sentence on the computer, then it's very tempting to go back and fidget with it and spend another 20 minutes trying to make it into a good sentence.

  Jonathan Dee

  Nice, Writing, Trying

  "Jonathan Dee's Art Of Apology". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 4, 2013.

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• I seem to have a talent for writing endings that seem just right to me but that frustrate other people.

  Jonathan Dee

  Writing, People, Talent

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• Those who know New York City primarily through tourism or mass culture may think of us natives as possessing certain shared characteristics, not all of them flattering. But the true, volatile charisma of New York lies in how balkanised it is.

  Jonathan Dee

  New York, Lying, Thinking

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• The Postman Always Rings Twice that's a book that I think every writer should read - that has to do with technique. But it's also a novel narrated by a guy who has decided by page 11 that he's fallen in love with a woman, and they're going to murder her husband so they can be together. There's nothing remotely likeable about him, but James M. Cain brings you so far into his head that, at a certain point, you have that uncomfortable but also thrilling sensation of seeing things exactly as he sees it.

  Jonathan Dee

  Husband, Book, Thinking

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Kenneth Branagh. There was a time in my life when people would tell me constantly that I look like him. I could do a lot worse than that.

  Jonathan Dee

  People, Looks, Kenneth

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• New York is ultimately not the synthesis but merely the sum of its unfathomable subjectivities, its personal histories, its uncategorisable figures.

  Jonathan Dee

  New York, Synthesis, Subjectivity

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• You should not really entertaining anyone else, but trying to be yourself, because there are already more good books than you or I could ever read in our lifetime.

  Jonathan Dee

  Being Yourself, Book, Trying

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I personally feel I still have so much to learn as a writer; each novel is better than the one before, just because I'm getting better at it.

  Jonathan Dee

  Get Better, Novel

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I once saw John Updike get in front of a crowd and read a story that he'd written in 1958, and I just thought, I can't even look at stuff I wrote a year ago, I can't believe he's doing this.

  Jonathan Dee

  Creer

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• En el instituto, tuve un profesor que fue realmente estupendo conmigo y con el que por fin me atreví a admitir que yo también quería ser escritor, e hicimos un proyecto en el que escribí una ficción terrible, de 17 años. Pero recuerdo un par de historias. Me encantaría poder leer con orgullo algo que escribí hace tanto tiempo, pero aún no ha ocurrido.

  Jonathan Dee

  Teacher, Couple, School

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The first draft of everything, I write longhand. One of the nice things about that is that it makes you keep going. If you write a bad sentence on the computer, then it's very tempting to go back and fidget with it and spend another 20 minutes trying to make it into a good sentence. When you're handwriting, you really just have to move on.

  Jonathan Dee

  Nice, Moving, Writing

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I hesitate to say yes - I had writer's block, because I know there are people who've had really serious cases of it, and I've never been paralyzed like that, but I definitely get blocked sometimes. More than periods where I don't write anything, I have periods where I just write junk and I know I'm writing junk but I can't stop.

  Jonathan Dee

  Block, Writing, People

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• You see that in the news constantly; done both the right way and the wrong way. The most recent example I can think of, obviously, is Lance Armstrong, who got it all wrong. Who wanted to apologize strategically, instead of abjectly. What got me interested was the repetitive nature of it. There's something so ritualized about it. Then the ritual needs to be reenacted very carefully and pretty frequently - Tiger Woods, and now Manti Te'o and Lance Armstrong, and a little earlier Anthony Weiner or Eliot Spitzer.

  Jonathan Dee

  Thinking, Done, Apologizing

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• That's a long way of saying no, I'm always too bound up in thinking about the characters in whatever I'm working on and trying to make good to dwell on characters from previous books.

  Jonathan Dee

  Libro, Carácter, Pensamiento

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• A Thousand Pardons began at the beginning. I wanted it to be one continuous, almost breathless kind of story. In order to do that, it's really hard not to begin at the beginning. There's such a chain of consequence to everything that happens to main characters - it's very hard to break it apart and still be able to hold the plot in your head.

  Jonathan Dee

  Character, Kind, Break

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Luckily for you, you can close the book The Postman Always Rings Twice and break out of it, and James M. Cain can't. I can't think of any redeeming feature he has, but he's extremely compelling.

  Jonathan Dee

  Book, Thinking, Break

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Esa es realmente la esencia de lo que hace cualquier escritor de ficción. Una parte se basa en la investigación, pero la mayor parte es un esfuerzo a largo plazo, imaginativo y empático por ver el mundo como lo vería alguien cuyas experiencias son muy distintas a las tuyas. No todos los escritores trabajan así; algunos hacen una carrera maravillosa escribiendo libros que se adhieren muy estrechamente a su forma de ver el mundo. Cuanto más avanzo, más me interesa tratar de imaginarme otras perspectivas que al principio me parecen extrañas.

  Jonathan Dee

  Book, Writing, Perspective

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I don't want to make it sound too much like I'm telling people how to read the book A Thousand Pardons, but what Ben Armstead is doing, he's doing more or less on purpose as a very elaborate way of making a sacrifice in his personal life. He needs to start over. This is how he chooses to do it - by blowing up where he is.

  Jonathan Dee

  Book, Sacrifice, People

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Another big moment in terms of that feeling was David Petraeus: if the director of the CIA can't get away with having a secret relationship, then what hope do you have? It's not really an original idea, but there's something that goes along with power and celebrity that starts to make you feel like you're impervious to certain forces that the rest of us have to live with.

  Jonathan Dee

  Feelings, Secret, Moments

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I worry that's what people are going to think about me if they kind of go backwards. But if that didn't happen to you, I'll feel better.

  Jonathan Dee

  Feel Better, Thinking, People

  Fuente: www.interviewmagazine.com

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