Amy Waldman Quotes

'At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom' by Amy Hempel showed me the lean quality of prose.

I recently read a collection of stories called 'Boondock Kollage,' by Regina Bradley. The stories follow multiple characters through the South, through the past and present. I loved reading that book: the first time I read the opening story, I was breathless and incoherent.

I would like my novels to be read the way I read the novels I love.

Faulkner was the first novelist I read with pen and paper in hand because his technique stunned me.

'MotherFatherSon' was just an extraordinary read and I wanted to be a part of it.

When you're reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take it as a data point in the big story of how the world works. Does such-and-such a kind of guy get the girl in the end? Does adultery ever bring happiness? How do winners become winners?

I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to happen next, but how is this done? How is it that these words on the page make me feel the way I'm feeling? This is the line of inquiry that I think happens in a child's mind, without him even knowing he has aspirations as a writer.

Both 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' and my first novel, 'This One is Mine,' are pretty complex on a story level, and fun reads as a result.

I think that the mark of a great book is that it will meet you wherever you're at and you'll feel and experience something new and different each time you read it.

My job is to form the people, the story, the sentences. Every reader will bring their own life and their own history to the story and shape it accordingly. I guess you can say it's like I am sending them a letter.

Mark Helprin and Lawrence Durrell, both of whom write fat and florid novels that appall me now but opened my eyes to the power of fiction when I was in my 20s.

Anything I've ever read by John Irving has been really well written.

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.'

Perhaps the writer I've read the most of is Haruki Murakami, the Japanese writer, but I wouldn't necessarily say he's a favourite. I read him because I find his work so intriguing, but I don't necessarily feel I would follow this writer to the ends of the earth.

I remember reading 'The Guest' and thinking, 'This is going to be something!'

I admired Mary's work very much. From the time someone gave me 'The Liars' Club,' I immediately went into a world where I grew up. And I remember, when I finished the book, I actually thought, 'You know what, I need to write songs with her.'

Longest book was '2666' by Roberto Bolano, and it was an irregular reading experience. I read the first four parts during a cross-country plane trip, reading at slightly slower-than-usual speed but surprised at how accessible the book was compared with 'The Savage Detectives.'

There's a book called 'You're Not a Stranger Here' by Adam Haslett - short stories, a lot of them are about mental illness and gay people - that classic combination. But they're really well-written, really powerful. It's pretty good.

When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.

When I go for a project, I wonder what underpinning a project will have that's going to give the audience some emotional access to it.

I wouldn't like to be a character in one of my books!

The things I keep going back to, rereading, maybe they say more about me as a reader than about the books. Love in the Time of Cholera, Pale Fire.

You can be moved by an animated film and not by a live action film. There could be great inspiration in and humanity in that animated story.

I write books that will make 10 or 12 hours disappear, and hopefully they'll resonate with you for a few days, where you'll remember the characters and the story. That suits me fine; I am happy with that.

A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake.