Anthony Doerr Quotes

My short stories have always pushed twenty pages. That's no length for a short story to be. You either do them short like Carver or you stop trying.

I did not think much what I was writing them for, except that I knew I wanted my next novel to be in some less conventional form than straight narrative.

I remember thinking during those times that I wanted to write in a way where there are no rules.

I really do love 'Panama.' But I'd also have to admit that right now, if I were driven to write another novel like that, I wouldn't even try to find a publisher for it. It simply wouldn't be published. I'd be writing it to put in my closet upstairs.

I don't do flash fiction.

No one has the Houdini school of composition.

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 don't think I'd have the stamina, skill or ability to write a novel, but I'd love to write short stories and poetry, because those are my two passions.

I adore anything Michael Alexis writes.

I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels.

I think it's much more natural as a writer to want to tell one story rather than lots of small stories that are half an hour long.

I tend to be more of a novel writer. In fact, some of my novels started out as short stories, and I just got carried away! I think some of my best writing is in the short story form, but novels come more naturally to me.

All of the little entries in 'The Cows' were written in an irregular way. There might be one or two done one day, and then two weeks might go by or four weeks, and then they were put in an order or sequence.

I'm a writer, not a genre.

When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.

I am not a consecutive writer.

I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.

The way I write is totally instinctive. I just write what I feel or what I find funny - and hope everyone else agrees.

This sort of encouragement is vital for any writer. And lastly the publication of Touching the Flame, which was on hold for two years and went through a few publishers before finding a stable home.

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.

As a writer, I can't really take days off. Writing is like creating an art. Once you stop writing, you can lose your rhythm and context, meaning that your writing may lose its power.

I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and sent it to the editor-in-chief of the children's division of Simon and Schuster and she asked me to write a little children's book for a series she was doing.

My first serious attempts at writing were made in 1868, and I took up two very different lines of composition; I wrote some short stories of a very flimsy type, and also a work of a much more ambitious character, 'The Lives of the Black Letter Saints.'

The market for short stories is hard to break into, but a magazine editor isn't always looking for big names with which to sell his magazine - they're more willing to try stories by newcomers, if those tales are good.

It wasn't until I started to read short stories - by people like Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, John Updike... Eudora Welty - that I became excited about the possibilities of writing.