Top Lynne Tillman Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Lynne Tillman Biography

Lynne Tillman (born 1947) is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and teaches at the School of Visual Arts' Art Criticism and Writing MFA Program. Tillman is the author of five novels, five collections of short stories, two collection of essays, and two other nonfiction books. She writes a bi-monthly column "In These Intemperate Times" for Frieze art magazine.

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Lynne Tillman Quotes

What I don't like about teaching is hearing myself say the same thing. I mean, you just want to sort of shoot yourself after a while. But you don't have a million different ways of thinking about what you have been thinking about for many years. And then there's the truism that you're only as good as your students. If they're not into what's going on, it doesn't matter who you are.

Good, Mean, Million, Teaching, Thing, Thinking

I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable. " It's not about your character winning a popularity contest. That's not the writer's job.

Character, Dostoyevsky, Jobs, Winning

You have to create the space for the possibility of people speaking as they do. If writing is supposed to lead us in any way or educate or suggest other ways of being, it can't do so by simply reflecting what's considered to be realistic.

Educate, People, Space, Suggest, Way, Writing

I don't believe a picture is worth a thousand words, unless they're very confusing words.

Believe, Confusing, Picture, Words, Unless

When something in a sequence is edited, if you repeat an image, but in a different place, the effect is different. Because the brain is remembering, and the different juxtaposition triggers other memories, thoughts, ideas, and so on.

Memories, Ideas, Brain, Image, Effect, Edited

In depression, you're flattened. Your energy level is gone. When I'm anxious, I tend to have more energy. But it depends on the nature of the anxiety. The anxiety to finish something would seem to be more productive than the anxiety that says, "You're feeling sick. "

Anxiety, Depression, Feelings, Flattened, Sick

I've always liked elliptical writing, whether it's Kafka or Paula Fox, and I'm often bored by writers who explain too much. I think that becomes journalism. Mostly I don't try to explain to readers who somebody is - I just write about the somebody. I'm thinking through ideas. And I have the sense that, if you're reading this, you have some interest.

Becomes, Fox, Paula, Reading, Thinking, Writing

You know how some people are upwardly mobile? I'm sort of downwardly mobile in the publishing world, because of my sales figures and also because of the kind of books I write. Everything really counts on sales. I started out with a bigger press, my first few books. But I've always done some things with independent and small presses and small magazines and I always will.

Book, Counts, Independent, Press, World, Writing

Reading gave me great comfort and pleasure. When I started being able to write, around seven or eight, I wanted to be able to do that myself, to create that other world.

Eight, Pleasure, Reading, Seven, Writing

Whether they're ghosts of great writers or people I loved - some died because of AIDS, others under mysterious circumstances - I don't want to forget these people, ever. That's very much a part of my still being alive - to remember those who aren't here anymore.

Anymore, Circumstances, Ghost, Mysterious, People, Writers

Nothing is a matter of age. It's really in the person because you can publish book after book after book and still want that golden apple. And maybe it's the reality principle that has hit me. I believe that a career is very different from writing. My career is a certain kind of career.

Believe, Book, Certain, Kind, Writing

Being in Europe had helped me unlearn some of what I'd been taught or unconsciously believed.

Europe, Helped, Taught, Unlearn

Boring people don't know they're boring. That's the problem with boring people.

Boring, People, Problem

I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous. And to find what I think is the most wonderful language to make a beautiful sentence.

Beautiful, Extraneous, Thinking, Trying, Wonderful

The literary world is more time-traveling than the art world, and novelty is much more important in art than it is in writing.

Art, Important, Literary, Novelty, Writing

People in the upper classes can just as easily be indifferent to their own body, or treat themselves as badly, as people who don't have the money. There are always differences among differences.

Class, Differences, People, Treat, Upper

I'm bothered, as a reader, when I feel the writer is filling in too much. Again, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, I think writers are providing a kind of template or platform for thinking and imagining.

Bothered, Filling, Kind, Platform, Thinking

I learned I could be miserable anywhere in the world. I learned I really was an American.

American, Anywhere, Miserable, World

I don't know what a natural thought process is.

Know, Natural, Process, Thought

The idea of equality is misunderstood. I wouldn't ever argue that everyone is the same, but that differences should not be hierarchical. Attitudes and expectations have been imposed on both men and women. For instance, men had very little to do with the raising of their children before the women's movement. The women's movement has freed men to become more active as fathers. We're living in a period of transition, but change can be much slower than we want, with unintended consequences, and can also be happening without our seeing it.

Children, Attitude, Father, Argue, Idea, Freed

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