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Jesse Ball Biography

Jesse Ball (born June 7, 1978) is an American novelist and poet. He has published novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, and drawings. His works are distinguished by the use of a spare style and have been compared to those of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

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Jesse Ball Quotes

I don't start with an idea or concept in the sense that I flesh out an idea or concept and set it at the center of something.

Center, Concept, Concepts, Flesh, Ideas, Sense

It is at the heart of our human enterprise, that is to say, at the heart of society, to allow consensus a power it ought not to have.

Allow, Consensus, Enterprise, Heart, Say

A person always has a chance to protest this or that.

Chance, Person, Persons, Protest

I don't think anything needs to happen in a book.

Book, Happen, Needs, Think, Thinking

I'm an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.

Bowl, Elephants, Lots, Needs, Room, Water

One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either
or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.

Cards, Events, Might, Pairs, Proposition, Suppose

I begin with an image of some sort, just as if you saw something out of a window, and then went to the window to see what it was.

Begin, Ifs, Image, Saws, See, Window

I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance.

Book, Happenstance, Luck, Might, Rest, Structure

The old man began to sing. His voice was very lovely and obviously a part of something that the world had disposed of in its haste, evidence of a grander, kinder past.

Disposed, Men, Obviously, Past, Voice, World

In searching for a way out of my own troubles, I had found my way into the troubles of others, some long gone, and now I was trying to find my way back out, through their troubles, as if we human beings can ever learn from one another.

Beings, Gone, Long, Troubles, Trying, Way

…There are times when something is asked of us, and we find we must do it. There is no calculation involved, no measure of the necessity of the thing itself, the action that must be performed. There is simply an acknowledgment that we will do the thing in question, and then the thing is done, often at considerable personal cost. " "What goes into these decisions? What tiny factors, invisible, in the jutting edges of personality and circumstance, contribute to this inevitability?

Action, Circumstance, Cost, Decision, Decisions, Personality

Different times and different structures make more sense at one point in life than at another.

Different, Make, Point, Points In Life, Structure, Times

If he acts, if he doesn't, it's meaningless. The whole thing goes forward. No one is important. No one at all.

Forward, Ifs, Important, Thing, Whole

Much of my work has been done in first person.

Done, Firsts, Person, Persons, Work

As far as ideas about book design: I have plenty. But I also try and let people do their jobs.

Book, Design, Ideas, Jobs

I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.

Different, Novel, Purpose, Similar, Writing

I'm clearer now in what I want to say, and I know better how to say just that.

Clearer, Know, Knows, Say, Want

I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.

Believe, Book, Easy, Funny, Quiet, Thinking

I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it. Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, but to find what does exist, and then to see what it is.

Believe, Doe, Love, See, Trying

I want to say less, and it's easier to say less.

Easier, Say, Want

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