James Gleick Quotes

We've been brought up to pick one thing in life and become really good at just that. But that's never what I wanted to be. I was always interested in many things at the same time, and I wanted to try all of them at the same time, too.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.

I am not a journalist or an academic.

When I'm identified as a fiction writer at parties, the question comes pretty quickly. 'Did you go to school for it?' someone asks. 'Yes,' I say. 'Where?' they ask, because I don't usually offer it. 'I went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop,' I say.

I think you can't help but write in your own voice.

I worked as an actor for many years. Then I segued to some non-fiction writing.

I call myself a nerd all the time.

I see myself more like a novelist or a polygamist than a musician in terms of my output.

I would like to be able to write in my own voice.

The first thing a writer needs to know is what kind of writer he/she is.

I wish I could think of a suitable name for the kind of writing I do.

I've been a nerd my whole life.

I've always been a writer. I've always done writing or spoken-word, hip-hop stuff with my friends.

I'm very complex and complicated. I like a lot, a lot.

I guess, when I left university, I liked the idea of being a writer, and I thought then that being a writer really meant that you were a novelist. But if one of the impulses for being a novelist is wanting to be a storyteller, I never had any urge to tell stories.

Sometimes I'll be writing something, and I say to myself, 'Okay, that's definitely DTB,' or, 'It's definitely Strapping.'

I am a poet, and I speak poetically.

I am a woman of many talents and they're all just pieces of the puzzle that make me and make my career.

If you were to put me under one umbrella, call me a storyteller.

Poets are like the decathletes of literature.

I'm fully conscious of the fact that I wouldn't be the writer that I am without this place, without Vermont College.

How you solve your problems are quite different. In non-fiction, you can always go back to the research, whereas in fiction, you have to go back to yourself - which is a little bit scary.

In my twenties and early thirties, I wrote three novels, but beginning in my late thirties, I wearied of the mechanics of fiction writing, got interested in collage nonfiction, and have been writing literary collage ever since.

I'll be writing essays long after I've stopped writing fiction. There is this unusually broad range in the non-fiction, but if you look at what I'm capable of as a novelist, I'm more limited.

I'm not much of a risk taker, I'm more of an arty farty person.