Jacquelyn Jablonski Quotes

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

Any director or writer or artist has the right to do what they want to do - freedom of expression is something I celebrate.

I love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.

Aesthetic freedom is like free speech; it is, indeed, a form of free speech.

To me, writing is a matter of voice. I think like that. The expression I sometimes use to myself is 'actual song.' That what I do is somewhere on the line between speaking to you as I am now and actual song. And the things I love when I say one of those poems to myself - it's a little bit like singing, it's a little bit like speaking.

Freedom of speech is, to all Americans, as oxygen is to the human condition. It is a right that has been irreversibly programmed into our hard drive. We are free to speak our minds. An artist's right to express him or herself as best suits their art, is the artist's prerogative and it is guaranteed.

Farber had a huge effect on me as a writer. I don't mean I write like him. Farber is, first of all, a great stylist, a great writer. Anyone can read Manny Farber's film criticism, whether that person is a novelist, a poet, another critic, a historian, and learn a lot about writing by reading him.

Writing is not a competitive sport. Everyone that writes has his or her own voice.

I'll agonize over sentences. Mostly because you're trying to create specific effects with sentences, and because there are a number of different voices in the book.

My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works.

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

And write what you love - don't feel pressured to write serious prose if what you like is to be funny.

To restrict the artist is a crime. It is to murder germinating life.

Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price.

I want to be a poet and have a chance to explore that and let people know what's really on my mind.

I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it!

I love to run smart essays and commentary. But it doesn't replace the other kind of reporting.

I have always loved story - I escaped within it as a child, I read every day, I love figuring out the complex layers of an author's work.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

You can sometimes get your own feelings across more strongly if you pretend that you're singing it from someone else's angle. But it's always from me. It's just a new way of framing it.

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.

I love the essay. It's my favorite genre to work in.

I have an affinity for writing in the first person. I love the intimacy of being dropped inside the character.

I love to tell stories and this is my way of getting them down on paper.

Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas, play with language, solve problems, use my imagination, and draw on my own childhood.