It does seem like between the groundbreaking writing of Edmund White's generation and the work of younger gay writers in their twenties and thirties there is a kind of gap. Garth Greenwell More Quotes by Garth Greenwell More Quotes From Garth Greenwell I don't think I'm qualified to answer questions about happiness. But I guess I'd say that I don't think you ever get to put to bed something like a search for order, or any other element of your sensibility, however much you'd like to. Garth Greenwell bed order thinking I'm still primarily interested in observing as closely as possible the shifting weather between people. I think the master of this sort of thing, and a writer who has meant a great deal to me, is Henry James: there's a magical way that he has of turning the slightest gesture into a whole world of drama and feeling. Garth Greenwell weather drama thinking If my novel gets any attention in Bulgaria, it will be as a scandal: a book about a teacher at a famous school and his relationship with a prostitute. I doubt very much it will be evaluated on its merits as literature. If Bulgarian were the book's only language, that would be painful and limiting to me as a writer. Since my book also exists in English - where it isn't scandalous at all - I feel comfortable with the possibility of scandal. Garth Greenwell teacher book school I'm not sure I can articulate any principles behind the decisions about what to cut and what to keep. Garth Greenwell cutting principles decision I think history is only ever invisible when it abets your sense of self, your desires, your ambitions, when it carries your life along in a kind of frictionless way. Garth Greenwell ambition self thinking A Heart So White is simply one of the best novels I know. I'm also thrilled by Javier Marías sentences, by how elegant they are while also being so permissive in relation to the niceties of grammar and so open to the prospect of surprise. He's a genius. Garth Greenwell genius white heart None of us sees history fully; none of us is adequately aware of how the arrangements of the present moment foreclose the possibilities of others to fully live their only lives. Garth Greenwell arrangements possibility moments I'm not sure any narrative model has been more important for me than Benjamin Britten's chamber operas. Garth Greenwell opera narrative important I realized, that the life of a musician, even of a very lucky, very successful musician, wasn't really the life I wanted: I hate travel, I hate living out of suitcases, I hate the constant anxiety of being on stage. Garth Greenwell anxiety hate successful For me, music was always a second language. I didn't have a musical background, and I started studying very late, at fourteen. Garth Greenwell musical language study I realized that there was an intellectual content in music, a kind of thinking, that I would never be able to hear. Garth Greenwell able intellectual thinking I guess I've done a lot of different kinds of performing at various times - opera singing, poetry reading, not least high school teaching - and I do enjoy it, at least sometimes. But I find it incredibly anxiety-producing and exhausting. Privacy is more congenial, and I go a little crazy if I can't spend a big chunk of every day, or almost every day, alone. Certainly I have to be alone to write. Garth Greenwell crazy reading teaching I think one reason I'm drawn to expansive syntax is that arias are so often exercises in extending language as a means of intensifying feeling. Garth Greenwell exercise mean thinking Even though I don't sing any more, singing was my first education in the arts, and it's clear to me that my training as a musician also shaped me as a writer. Garth Greenwell training singing art I studied opera, and when I left conservatory I told myself I would never sing in public again. Garth Greenwell conservatory opera left The academy is an incredibly sheltered world, and I do think it's important for writers to get out from under that shelter, at least for a while, to see what the world looks like from outside it. Garth Greenwell important looks thinking I went back to graduate school because I wanted to avoid being a professional, to try to piece together a life that would let me avoid the tenure race and full-time teaching. Garth Greenwell race teaching school Being a high school teacher was wonderful, but unsustainable: I needed a way out. Garth Greenwell teacher way school I felt a lot of ambivalence about going back to graduate school for a second MFA. The impulse was really the opposite from what it had been more than a decade before: I wanted to interrupt a career. Garth Greenwell careers opposites school Teaching high school was my real training as a novelist: it got me out of my head, and (at least a little) out of books, and invested me in the lives of others and the world around me. Garth Greenwell real teaching book
