35 Ethan Canin Quotes for You to Enjoy

Ethan Canin

American Author

Born: Jul 19, 1960

Life Me People Think Writing You

Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar

I think that's what poets try to do: They try to sidestep neurology and go straight to meaning. Ethan Canin

Try Think Poets Go Straight Meaning

I think one of the battles for fiction writers is how much to invent or exaggerate. Ethan Canin

Invent Think Battles Exaggerate Writers How How Much Fiction Fiction Writers Much

Politicians are already exaggerated. They're bigger than life in every way - their appetites, their ambitions, their personalities, their failings, their magnetism. In a sense, they're made for fiction. Ethan Canin

Life Made Ambition Politicians Sense Every Way Exaggerated Magnetism Failings Than Fiction Bigger Personalities Appetites

I think one of the things that is essential for happiness in life, or at least for non-sadness, is producing something. I guess that's why I spend so much time and agony writing books. But working on carpentry is sort of like all the pleasure with none of the agony. Ethan Canin

Happiness Life Time Writing Think Guess Spend Books Pleasure Carpentry One Of The Things Something Like Sort None Least Essential So Much Time Much Working Producing Agony Why Things

A ten- or twelve-page story seems too easy, which is a funny thing to say considering that writing a decent short story is devastatingly difficult. Yet it still seems easier than a novel. You can turn a short story on a single good line - ten pages of decent writing and one good moment. Ethan Canin

Funny Good You Writing Single Difficult Too Funny Thing Considering Say Easier Easy Seems Ten Still Line Than Short Decent Short Story Story Which Turn Pages Moment Novel Thing

The only successful way to write, and the only one I have found, is to be the character. Give up on trying to control them. Writers always talk about hearing voices. That's what they mean. Ethan Canin

Character Control Way About Give Only Voices Write Writers Talk Always Hearing Up Trying Mean Them Successful Found

I teach a 14-week semester, and one of the things I do when I have to teach literature is, for the first half hour of the class, I have the students write the beginning of a new story every week. At the end of the semester, even if they have learned nothing about literature, at least they'll have 14 beginnings that they can take with them. Ethan Canin

Class First Half Beginning Nothing Every One Of The Things About Week Write Take Students New Hour Learned Least End Semester Beginnings New Story Story Literature Them Teach Even Things

I read for the sensation of becoming another person; I write for the same sensation. Ethan Canin

Write Read Another Becoming Person Same Sensation

You know that thing people say, 'poetry is the hardest, stories are the second hardest, novels are the easiest?' I'm here to tell you that novels are the hardest. Writing a novel is unbelievably difficult. It's nightmarish. Ethan Canin

You People Writing Difficult Say Easiest Tell People Say Unbelievably Poetry Know Stories Novel Novels Hardest Thing Second Here

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