Dani Shapiro Quotes
A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired, or the worst: isn't it good enough? this may be harsh, but she loses just a little bit of my respect. Because there is no room for impatience, or exhaustion, or self-satisfaction, or laziness. All of these really mean, simply, that the inner censor has won the day.
Shapiro, Dani. Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013.
Dani Shapiro is an American writer, the author of five novels including Family History (2003) and Black & White (2007) and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion (1998), Devotion (2010), Hourglass (2017), and Inheritance (2019). She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Elle. In February 2019, she created an original podcast on iHeart Radio called Family Secrets. In April 2020, she launched her second original podcast on the same platforms called The Way We Live Now, which includes daily episodes rather than the weekly format of Family Secrets. The new podcast addresses the societal and personal changes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home orders and their subsequent isolation.
