What’s Strange Is How Many Beginning Writers

I Can No More Reread My Own Books Than I Can Watch Old Home Movies Or Look At Snapshots Of Myself As A Child. I Wind Up Sitting On The Floor, Paralyzed By Grief And Nostalgia.

I Think Poets Are Much More Dramatic, More Theatrical Than Fiction Writers.

A Lot Of Girls Who Turn Into Something Remarkable Start Off As Irrepressible, Confident And A Handful.

If Things Are Going Well I Can Easily Spend Twelve Hours A Day Writing, But Not Writing Writing, Just Thinking And Revising And Taking A Comma Out And Putting It Back In.

With This Recitation Of Paraphernalia And Detritus, O'brien Manages To Encapsulate The Experience Of An Army And Of A Particular War, Of A Mined And Booby-trapped Landscape, Of Cold Nights And Hot Days, Of Soaking Monsoons And Rice Paddies, And Of The Possibility Of Being Shot, Like Ted Lavender, Suddenly And Out Of Nowhere: Not Only In The Middle Of A Sentence But In The Midst Of A Subordinate Clause.