I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears open, you can't possibly live long enough to write all the novels you'll encounter.' Jill McCorkle More Quotes by Jill McCorkle More Quotes From Jill McCorkle The silver friend knows your present and the gold friend knows all of your past dirt and glories. Once in a blue moon there is someone who knows it all, someone who knows and accepts you unconditionally, someone who is there for life. Jill McCorkle moon blue past For me, a happy ending is not everything works out just right and there is a big bow, it's more coming to a place where a person has a clear vision of his or her own life in a way that enables them to kind of throw down their crutches and walk. Jill McCorkle work-out vision way I thought that we were all like trees, flexible youths, saplings, who grow up heavy and stiff, spread seeds and get chopped down and turned into notebook paper. Jill McCorkle notebook growing-up tree There is a choice to make, a chance to take. Jill McCorkle chance choices Steve Yarbrough is a masterful storyteller-one of our finest-and Safe from the Neighbors is a masterpiece. . . . This is a spellbinding, powerful novel. Jill McCorkle neighbor powerful safe You will never be as smart as your subconscious. Jill McCorkle subconscious smart If a nuclear disaster occurred, and you had to live out those final painful days just stretched out somewhere thinking about your life--This is who I am. This is what I love. This is what I believe--who would you want hearing your whispers? Or perhaps better: Who do you trust to hear your whispers? Whose breath do you want mingled with your own? Whose flesh still warm beside you? Jill McCorkle thinking-about-you who-i-am believe We used to all come outside when the streetlights came on and prowl the neighborhood in a pack, a herd of kids on banana-seat bikes and minibikes. The grown-ups looked so silly framed in their living-room and kitchen windows. They complained about their days and signed deep sighs of depression and loss. They talked about how spoiled and lucky children were these days. We will never be that way, we said, we will never say those things. Jill McCorkle silly kids children I think that marriage vows should include an escape clause that says the contract is broken if one party ups and makes a big switch in religion or politics or aesthetic taste. I mean, these shifts just aren't fair, and we need an easier way out. Jill McCorkle marriage party mean Humor - I see it as a survival skill. Jill McCorkle survival-skills survival skills I feel very protective in the first draft, when all the pieces are coming together. I work in a way that is not linear or chronological at all, even with the short story. I will just be writing bits and pieces, and then when I have all the pieces on the table, that for me is when it feels like the real work begins. Jill McCorkle real together writing Certainly if I were to think in terms of a field that would have required a different mode of education, I think I would have leaned in the direction of being a therapist. And without the education, or a different kind of education, I think my first choice would be a landscape architect. I love to garden. Jill McCorkle garden choices thinking Building a dollhouse is a lot like writing a novel because you are God of the Universe. Jill McCorkle dollhouses building writing By limiting or denying freedom of speech and expression, we take away a lot of potential. We take away thoughts and ideas before they even have the opportunity to hatch. We build a world around negatives - you can't say, think, or do this or that. Jill McCorkle thoughts you freedom opportunity I was with my dad 20 years ago as he was dying. I was there at the moment of his death, and I kept wondering the whole while what it must feel like from his point of view to still be there thinking, hearing all that was going on as people came and went, and life continued all around him. Jill McCorkle moment life death people Sometimes I do feel like I write the same story again and again. And for me, I am always looking for a place with a kind of redemption. Jill McCorkle i-am looking feel me My joy as a writer is circling around and around and down and down to find out who the real person is. Jill McCorkle person down real joy By the time I sit down ready to write, I've done a lot of longhand and a lot of note collecting along the way. Jill McCorkle down done time way One day, when my son was eight, he came into the kitchen while I was cooking and said: 'You put bad words in your books, don't you?' No doubt he had overheard my mother, who often tells people who ask about my work: 'Well, you'll never find her books in the Christian bookstore.' Jill McCorkle day mother work son It's one of the most basic laws of human nature, isn't it? The more we are denied something, the more we want it. The more silence given to this or that topic, the more power. Jill McCorkle human-nature silence nature power
