Jami Attenberg Quotes

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.

I have never written out of a desire to be controversial.

I don't like to write about things that bore me, and that means I steer far clear of writing books that are just like what's on the shelves.

I prefer writing originals.

I try and write the way things happen. I don't try and fulfill people's wishes.

I don't really approach stories to make them different from other stuff I've seen, I just try to get into the character, into his or her head. Try to make it as funny, as scary or as wild as I can so that I really like it.

I look at scripts really for whether they can be moving or penetrate some kind of truth. You are constantly chasing that feeling as an actor when every part of a production comes together.

I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular.

No one has the Houdini school of composition.

I don't shy from controversy. I'm telling stories, and I'll tell whatever story seems like it wants to be told.

I read some of my stories recently and thought, 'How in the hell did I get away with that?' I had some really raw cynicism in some of them.

I have to believe everything I write is brand new and I'm writing in this way about these people in a completely new situation for the very first time.

A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.

What I'm after is something different than supplying people with the idea that I'm writing an important play.

You can fake a lot of stuff, but you can't fake if the story isn't there and if the writing isn't good.

The world isn't all happy, shiny people, and great art doesn't come from vanilla. Great art comes from people with a point of view and are very passionate.

You can only write your own vision.

You do your best to tell your own story, in the most specific way, and then you hope that that travels well, when it's done with heart and honesty.

What I don't like is constructing a book that fits in with any kind of generic template, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

I never wanted the temptation to imitate or emulate something that had been done beforehand.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it.