Daniel Alarcon Quotes

To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth.

Of course, I write. I have stories to tell. But I don't want to do superficial stuff any more.

My hope is for a literature that raises the language above the ordinary, makes words both functional and emotional, and to resonate at the frequency of the human spirit - the skill and insight of the writer lifting the parochial novel above the level of regional concern. Making it personal, national, and universal.

Madly, futilely, I wrote novel after novel, eight in all, that failed to find a publisher. I persisted because for me the novel was the supreme literary form - not just one among many, not a relic of the past, but the way we communicate to one another the subtlest truths about this business of living.

You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.

What you compose with is neither here nor there, you compose with words, or you compose with stone plants and trees, or you compose with events; the Sheriff's officer, or whatever.

In good writing, the contemplative and the exciting happen at the same time.

Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.

A book can be wonderful and powerful and accessible and artful all at the same time.

Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

I was always at heart a novelist and wanted to tell a bigger story, so I wanted to create people who told other kinds of truths than literal truths.

I'm of the Samuel Goldwyn school of writing: If you need to send a message, call Western Union. Any messages people take away from my books are the ones they see in them.

When I was coming out of college, storytelling was very much something you did with pencil and paper, so the technological platform versatility, I think, is really valuable.

As far as subject matter, I'd say most of the songs aren't that personal to me. I love making up characters and kind of having fun in a different kind of way.

An essay is a thing of the imagination. If there is information in an essay, it is by-the-by, and if there is an opinion, one need not trust it for the long run. A genuine essay rarely has an educational, polemical, or sociopolitical use; it is the movement of a free mind at play.

A novel is a great act of passion and intellect, carpentry and largess. From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

There are very few people who are creative and imaginative. Therefore, fiction is difficult for people to embrace.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

I would very much like to be one of those writers who have something really clear in their head to say, and throughout their life they promote this idea in their works.

Only in a novel are all things given full play.

I don't think there's any topic a writer should feel afraid of tackling just because it has already been discussed. If you feel you have a fresh perspective and an understanding of a certain emotional truth, it's always worth writing.

No two dramatists think or write alike. Ten thousand playwrights can take the same premise, as they have done since Shakespeare, and not one play will resemble the other except in the premise. Your knowledge, your understanding of human nature, and your imagination will take care of that.

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.