I wrote Baghdad Central right after translating a great work by Ibrahim al-Koni, who is sort of a master of Arab fiction. In conversations with him I realized that translations have been my MFA program. If I have learned how to write fiction it's by working with great writers and getting them to explain their craft to me so that I can do it in English. That's how I've figured it out.
Regardless of your ethnicity or anything, if you do great work, people will notice and you'll get hired.
I think that China has many outstanding authors, and their great works should also be recognised by the world.
If you do the bare minimum, expect bare minimum results. You want to be great, work to be great. Nothing just happens
It's great working with directors and with somebody else's vision.
All great artists and thinkers are great workers.
A great work of art is one that continues to repay attention.
Ultimately, if you are doing great work, the money will come.
I am especially indebted to a 10th grade English teacher who encouraged me to read great works of literature.
After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.
The great works belong to no one nation, no one cultural tradition even. They are universal.
If continually people look and look and always come away enriched, then it's a great work
I think all the knowledge and all the travels that I've done, I'm going to do a lot of great work in the future.
Committing great work does not necessarily feed you.
James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end.
Our best work can't possibly appeal to the average masses, only our average work can. Finding the humility to happily walk away from those that don't get it unlocks our ability to do great work.
No great work of art is ever finished.
Great works of the imagination are not produced quickly nor do they take quick effect on the popular mind.
Great groups deliver great results. And for everyone involved in a great group, great work is its own reward.
Reading poetry and reading the great works of the canon that we were reading in the '60s and the '70s and '80s was mind altering.
