I used to be more of a purist about literature. I thought, 'If it's a really propulsive story, then maybe there's something unliterary about it.' Steven Heighton More Quotes by Steven Heighton More Quotes From Steven Heighton Interest is never enough. If it doesn't haunt you, you'll never write it well. What haunts and obsesses you may, with luck and labour, interest your readers. What merely interests you is sure to bore them. Steven Heighton luck writing may To listen to critics, pro or con, and take their words to heart is to subcontract your self-esteem to strangers. (from Workbook) Steven Heighton stranger self-esteem heart The idiot willingness to choose sides is what feeds the abattoir of history. Steven Heighton willingness idiot sides Cast a spell and the small flaws don't matter. (From Workbook) Steven Heighton casts flaws matter It's no sin to tell a good story. Steven Heighton good-story sin stories Lyrical poets have to be in touch with visceral experience. I've always tried to avoid virtual experiences. That's emerging in my fiction. Steven Heighton avoid touch always experience I had a book of essays out in 1997 in which I talked about the increasing virtuality of our lives. I've always been afraid of that in my own life. Steven Heighton own my-own life book I'm supportive of practical nationalism, like the kind we need in Canada to avoid being absorbed into a much larger country. The kind of nationalism I despise as destructive and infantile is really just tribalism writ large. Steven Heighton need nationalism canada country I've been a traveller, but I don't travel so much now. I'm trying to do it vicariously through my writing. I'm trying to write books that will draw readers away from their lives but send them back in a more awakened way. Steven Heighton will writing way travel It gets too easy to write from the point of view of a male character of my age, with the same cultural frame of reference. Steven Heighton view age easy character