I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter. Tobias Wolff More Quotes by Tobias Wolff More Quotes From Tobias Wolff You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home. Tobias Wolff light home boys I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels. Tobias Wolff different writing believe You felt it as a depth of ease in certain boys, their innate, affable assurance that they would not have to struggle for a place in the world; that is already reserved for them. Tobias Wolff depth struggle boys Our memories tell us who we are and they cannot be achieved through committee work, by consulting other people about what happened. That doesn't mean that at all times memories are telling us the absolute truth, but that the main source of who we are is that memory, flawed or not. Tobias Wolff memories mean people We each after a while have to become reconciled to what it is that our talents and appetites lead us to. Tobias Wolff appetite talent There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody. Tobias Wolff self writing fall To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence. Tobias Wolff innocence certain needs Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow. Tobias Wolff veins flow memories The human heart is a dark forest. Tobias Wolff dark heart forests I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty stories," in which every problem is the occasion for a joke; "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown ups now. Tobias Wolff depressing stories witty Perhaps that is why the novel flourished in England. You had these communities that would stay put and people would see one another all the time and cause one another to change and have the opportunity to observe the changes over time. Tobias Wolff change opportunity people Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he'd led his boys to consider the folly of obsession with purity - its roots sunk deep in pride, flowering condemnation and violence against others and self. Tobias Wolff pride teaching boys One can imagine a world without essays. It would be a little poorer, of course, like a world without chess, but one could live in it. Tobias Wolff would-be chess littles It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time. Tobias Wolff time people past I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into. Tobias Wolff editors work people I love Chekhov. I could go on all day about him. Tobias Wolff chekhov goes-on love Reasons always came with a purpose, to give the appearance of a struggle between principle and desire. Principle had power only until you found what you had to have. Tobias Wolff struggle desire giving Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing. Tobias Wolff teaching writing people What writers do is they tell their own story constantly through other people's stories. They imagine other people, and those other people are carrying the burden of their struggles, their questions about themselves. Tobias Wolff struggle writing people There's a joy in writing short stories, a wonderful sense of reward when you pull certain things off. Tobias Wolff stories writing joy
