List of Francine Prose Quotes

I Wrote About Four Novels Before I Wrote A Word Of Journalism.

You Can Assume That If A Writer's Work Has Survived For Centuries, There Are Reasons Why This Is So, Explanations That Have Nothing To Do With A Conspiracy Of Academics Plotting To Resuscitate A Zombie Army Of Dead White Males.

Fact-checking Is So Boring Compared To Writing Fiction.

I Work Really Long Days And I Work Seven Day Weeks.

The Mystery Of Death, The Riddle Of How You Could Speak To Someone And See Them Every Day And Then Never Again, Was So Impossible To Fathom That Of Course We Kept Trying To Figure It Out, Even When We Were Unconscious.

I Waited For Dawn, But Only Because I Had Forgotten How Hard Mornings Were. For A Second I'd Be Normal. Then Came The Dim Awareness Of Something Off, Out Of Place. Then The Truth Came Crashing Down And That Was It For The Rest Of The Day. Sunlight Was Reproof. Shouldn't I Feel Better Than I Had In The Dead Of Night.

Traditionally, The Love Of Reading Has Been Born And Nurtured In High School English Class

So Perhaps The Correct Conclusion Is That Green Was Less Attuned To How People Sound When They Speak - The Actual Words And Expressions They Employ - Than To What They Mean. This Notion Of Dialogue As A Pure Expression Of Character That...transcends The Specifics Of Time And Place May Be Partly Why The Conversations In The Works Of Writers Such As Austen And Bronte Often Sound Fresh And Astonishingly Contemporary.

Words Are The Raw Material Out Of Which Literature Is Crafted.

Like Seeing A Photograph Of Yourself As A Child, Encountering Handwriting That You Know Was Once Yours But That Now Seems Only Dimly Familiar Can Inspire A Confrontation With The Mystery Of Time.

What’s Strange Is How Many Beginning Writers Seem To Think That Grammar Is Irrelevant, Or That They Are Somehow Above Or Beyond This Subject More Fit For A Schoolchild Than The Future Author Of Great Literature.

But Beneath It All Will Run That Sicilian Understanding That The Underside Of Joy Is Grief, That The Face Of Sacrifice And Suffering Is The Dark Mirror Image Of Pleasure And Enjoyment, That Every Moment Of Arrival Is To Be Treasured And Enjoyed In The Full Knowledge That It Has Brought Us A Moment Closer To The Moment Of Departure.