24 Alexander Chee Quotes for You to Enjoy

Alexander Chee

American Writer

First Me People Queen Writing You

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury W. E. B. Du Bois William Arthur Ward

The beauty of Maine is such that you can't really see it clearly while you live there. But now that I've moved away, with each return it all becomes almost hallucinatory: the dark blue water, the rocky coast with occasional flashes of white sand, the jasper stone beaches along the coast, the pine and fir forests somehow vivid in their stillness. Alexander Chee

You Water Dark Stillness Beauty White Live See Vivid Somehow Beaches Maine Almost Clearly Along Occasional Return Becomes Pine Rocky Forests Stone Blue Moved Flashes While Sand Really Coast Each Now Away

Acadia was founded in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson as the first Eastern national park, aided by rich men, often with middle initials, the 'rusticators,' as they were known then, the first of our wealthy out-of-state visitors. Alexander Chee

My fascination with women's clothes began very early. My mother was a very fashionable woman. She also made her own clothes. She had these fashion magazines, and I would draw the women in them. My middle school art teacher suggested that I have a fashion drawing show. Alexander Chee

Teacher Art Fashion Woman Women School Mother Made Own Clothes Draw Drawing Would Magazines Had Also She Began Very Middle Middle School Them Show Fascination Fashionable Her Early Suggested

A woman's desire is either terrifying, or it's ignored. Alexander Chee

Woman Terrifying Either Ignored Desire

My singing voice had rescued me from the scene I was in at school - I was an unpopular, bookish kid who had an indeterminate ethnic background. I became fascinated with women sopranos because they had a future that I didn't as a singer. Alexander Chee

Fate and history have a similar feeling. They are weird mirrors to each other. Alexander Chee

History Fate Feeling Other Similar Mirrors Weird Each

As a young writer, I questioned the idea that I had to write fiction in a world where I could write my own ethnicity only and nothing else. 'Fach' to me was a little like that. As a biracial person, that's an inherently unstable identity. Alexander Chee

Me World Own Young Nothing Else My Own Only Could Write Writer Had Idea Unstable Like Identity Questioned Person Where Fiction Little Ethnicity Inherently

At first, teaching was more or less a straightforward way of making a living and having access to institutional resources while writing - aka libraries. And that was not inconsiderable. But it didn't in any way touch the writing. Maybe it would push the writing aside sometimes, but mostly it was fine. Alexander Chee

Writing Sometimes First Living Resources Way Libraries Would Fine Touch Having More More Or Less Push Institutional Mostly Access Making Making A Living Any Maybe While Aside Straightforward Teaching Less

I've known the poet Eileen Myles since the 1990s, when I first moved to New York, and I remember seeing her walking her Pit Bull Rosie around the East Village. She had these beautiful arms and David Cassidy hair and the sort of swagger so many of the gay boys I knew wished we had. We all had crushes on her. Alexander Chee

Beautiful Gay Remember Poet Hair First East East Village Seeing David Had Knew Since New Wished Crushes She Arms Known Sort Around Boy Bull Walking York Pit Moved New York Swagger Rosie Many Village Her

The Narrator of 'A Sport and a Pastime' is an American photographer living in a borrowed house in what he calls 'the real France,' Autun, a small town where he hopes to take some career-changing photographs in the spirit of Atget. Alexander Chee

I'm not much of a Rick Moody fan, but I want to be a fan for the Rick Moody I thought might appear after his first two novels, 'Garden State' (1992) and 'The Ice Storm' (1994). Alexander Chee

Garden Moody Thought First State His Want Fan After Storm Ice Might Much Rick Appear Novels Two

My literary heroes were mostly women writers and thinkers - Joy Williams, Joan Didion, Anne Sexton, June Jordan, Sarah Schulman, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Christa Wolf - and much of this writing was political as well as literary. Alexander Chee

One of the things that's really important in 'Queen of the Night' is how people communicate with their clothes. Alexander Chee

People Queen Communicate Important Clothes One Of The Things How Really Things Night

I knew I wanted the parties in 'The Queen of the Night' to be convincing, beautiful, and also dramatic: situations where significant things happened on a scale that was both grand and intimate. There were several texts that helped me think about how to do this, and one of the most important ones was Charlotte Bronte's novel 'Villette.' Alexander Chee

Beautiful Me Queen Important Think Dramatic Intimate Several Scale Significant About Charlotte Both Knew Most Parties Also How Were Texts Situations The Most Important Where Wanted Happened Grand Convincing Helped Novel Things Night

When you're writing historical fiction, you have to think a little farther into the situation: what the average social interactions were, what was acceptable behavior. What did people think was fun, what did they find unhappy, and why? Alexander Chee

The qualities that make parties such a nightmare for people - and also so pleasurable - make them incredibly important inside of fiction. There's a chaos agent quality to them: You just don't know who's going to be there or why. You could run into an old enemy, an old friend, an old friend who's become an enemy. Alexander Chee

You Quality People Enemy Old Important Become Incredibly Chaos Pleasurable Run Inside Could Know Parties Also Qualities Make Friend Going Just Fiction Old Friend Them Agent Why Nightmare

Marie Cornelie Falcon, who lost her voice while performing - singing the line 'Je suis pret' - 'I am ready.' How much more tragic can you get? Alexander Chee

You Singing Lost More Voice Performing Ready How Am How Much Falcon Line Tragic Get While Much Who Her Marie

I loved being a soprano. It was one of my very favorite things in life, and thus far, and losing that voice was a profound emotional moment for me in my life. I never became that interested in my adult male singing voice. Alexander Chee

Life Me Losing My Life Singing Favorite Favorite Things Voice Emotional Adult Never Thus Soprano Singing Voice Became Male Very Being Loved Interested Far Moment Things Profound

In some ways, in 'The Queen of the Night,' I'm writing about some of the experience that I had with 'Edinburgh' where I was entirely unable to speak about what had happened to me as a child, but I could read from the novel. Alexander Chee

Me Experience Writing Queen Speak Ways Unable Some About Entirely Could Had Read Edinburgh Child Where Happened Novel Night

Historical fiction was not - and is not - meant to supplant literature from the period it describes. As a veteran of the Crimea, Tolstoy wrote 'War and Peace' to match his own internal sense of the truth of the Napoleonic wars, to dramatize what he felt literature from that period had failed to describe. Alexander Chee

Truth War Peace Veteran Own Sense Had He Failed Period Wrote Felt Match His Historical Historical Fiction Fiction Literature Meant Internal Wars Describe Tolstoy

In the summer of 1866, as Leo Tolstoy prepared for his serialized novel 'War and Peace' to be published as a single volume, he wrote to illustrator Mikhail Bashilov, hoping to commission drawings for the new edition of the novel, which he referred to by its original title,1805. Alexander Chee

In 2009, the 'New York Times' ran an analysis on the cost of being a LGBT couple trying to live as a married couple but without the same protections. Over a lifetime, they estimated a couple would spend as much as $467,562 more, and as little as $41,196, with costs running lower the higher your income. Alexander Chee

Live Analysis Ran Spend Married Married Couple Would Running Cost More Costs Higher Lifetime Over New Couple Without Times Trying York Same New York Being New York Times Estimated Little Much Lower Your Income

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