Fall 2003 in Quotes
As it is the new year, a time for recollection, reflection, blah, blah, blah--okay: I'm on vacation--this week's Nightstand is devoted to all the best quotes I took down during the busy past few months that, for whatever reason, never made it into the column.
"You see, they don't think I'm 54, they think I'm 83. They think I was born in the year of my father's birth, that somehow or other I wrote Lucky Jim--at the age of seven. And that I'm still around, and horribly going to be around for even longer than that. It's like outstaying your welcome."
--Martin Amis, talking in an interview about critics who resent him for his father's success
"The book was my jailer and I began to sympathize with its demands in a Patty Hearst way."
--Jeffrey Eugenides, during his Seattle Arts & Lectures event, on writing Middlesex
"I write like a snail crawling and leaving a full slimy trail. The first, second, and third drafts are all packed into this one movement. I really move slowly and completely over everything. And I can't jump ahead, like a snail can't jump."
--Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude, on his writing process
"Food is indicative of what class you are. If I have a glass of champagne, I want Chee-tos."
--Sandra Cisneros, during her Seattle Arts & Lectures event, on why food interests her as a novelist
"You must have lived on a really good street."
--Monica Ali, the author of Brick Lane and a resident of London, responding to a man at her October reading who said he'd lived for a while in London and found that the average person there appreciated "intellectual" books more than Americans do
"Probably."
--Matt Briggs, novelist and 2003 Stranger Genius Award recipient, when asked if he, like many of his characters, has psychological problems
"Michael Douglas got ahold of the script. And he liked the script. It almost made him want to read the book, I think."
--Michael Chabon, during a recent Nextbook event, on the process of his novel Wonder Boys being adapted into a movie
"My ability with language is the only thing that distinguishes me in the romance game."
--Sherman Alexie, talking at Richard Hugo House in October about growing up a "stuttering, lisping, Cyclops-eyed" (and slightly brain-damaged) child
"I think there are some books that it would be sad to go through life having not read. I think that's as far as I go. It would be sad if you never came across Iris Murdoch's formidable intelligence."
--Author and librarian Nancy Pearl on whether there are certain books everyone should read
"I used to write books. Now I just sign them."
--Jeffrey Eugenides on book touring
"My books aren't fun to write."
--Sandra Cisneros' response to a member of the audience who asked, "Which of your books was the most fun to write?"
