Amy Waldman Professions : Author Born : May 21, 1969 Browse All Authors Top 35 quotes by Amy Waldman The rhetoric is the first step, it coarsens attitudes Amy Waldman steps attitude firsts Eden, paradise - all the best gardens are imaginary. Amy Waldman paradise garden eden In America time was gold; in Bangladesh, corrugated tin. Amy Waldman tin gold america Work less than you think you should. It took me a while to realise there was a point each day when my creativity ran out and I was just producing words - usually lousy ones - for their own sake. And nap: it helps to refresh the brain, at least mine. Amy Waldman creativity naps thinking While researching 'The Submission,' I went to a protest against the Ground Zero mosque in New York when I was about to give birth to twins. It was about 100 degrees. People thought I was very dedicated. Amy Waldman zero new-york people The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon prompted a fundamental shift in the American government's approach to Islamic terrorism. Amy Waldman september-11 islamic government So the premise of 'The Submission' is that there's an anonymous competition to design a 9/11 memorial and it's won by an American Muslim, an architect born and raised in Virginia, and his name is Mohammad Khan. Amy Waldman virginia design names Over the centuries, and even today, the Bible and Christian theology have helped justify the Crusades, slavery, violence against gays, and the murder of doctors who perform abortions. The words themselves are latent, inert, harmless - until they aren't. Amy Waldman doctors gay christian In Germany, you have a huge official memorial to the murdered Jews and then you have this artist who's been putting these stumbling blocks, these brass cobblestones, outside the houses Jews were taken away from. It's somewhat controversial and has met some resistance. Amy Waldman block artist taken Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others. Amy Waldman reading writing character There were in life rarely, if ever, "right" decisions, never perfect ones, only the best to be made under the circumstances. Amy Waldman decision made perfect I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels. Amy Waldman wrestling book children I found 'The Twin' sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. It carried praise from J.M. Coetzee. That seemed ample justification for using it to avoid my own writing. I finished it - weeping - a day later, and I've been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. Amy Waldman coffee powerful writing I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge. Amy Waldman writing character years I wasted years worrying about what other people thought. Amy Waldman about thought people years Similar Authors F. E. Marsh author Iimani David author Beatrice Faust author Isabella Macdonald Alden author Isabella Beeton author Alan AtKisson author All Authors