Nonfiction is both easier and harder to write than fiction. It's easier because the facts are already laid out before you, and there is already a narrative arc. What makes it harder is that you are not free to use your imagination and creativity to fill in any missing gaps within the story.

Amy Bloom

Categorized in : You Facts Imagination Creativity

Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.

marriage love-you long

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are... by Amy Bloom

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.

sexy beautiful beauty

The library is every child's lighthouse. It is every person's by Amy Bloom

The library is every child's lighthouse. It is every person's

library ignorance children

Some people are your family no matter when you find them, and some people are not, even if you are laid, still wet and crumpled, in their arms.

arms matter people

In a true partnership, the kind worth striving for, the kind worth insisting on, and even, frankly, worth divorcing over, both people try to give as much or even a little more than they get. 'Deserves' is not the point. And 'owes' is certainly not the point. The point is to make the other person as happy as we can, because their happiness adds to ours. The point is -- in the right hands, everything that you give, you get.

giving hands people

Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.

dark memories two

Boundaries are the lines we draw that mark off our autonomy and that of other people, that protect our privacy and that of others. Boundaries allow for intimate connection without dissolving or losing one's sense of self.

lines self people

It is a wonderful, moving, heart-filling experience to sit with the man or woman you love and your beloved children and know that all are happy to be just where they are with each other and loving one another. This doesnt happen very often.

heart children moving

Bad people doing bad things is not interesting. What I find interesting is good people doing bad things.

bad-things people interesting

Be real and unashamed. Even of your faults. by Amy Bloom

Be real and unashamed. Even of your faults.

being-real faults real

Learning to listen, letting people finish their sentences, and most of all, the habit of noticing the difference between what people say and how they say it. {on the habits of psychoanalytic training and practice applied to fiction writing} The gap between what people tell you and what's really going on is what interests me.

differences practice writing

Aging is a chance to make what was good, great, and what was neve... by Amy Bloom

Aging is a chance to make what was good, great, and what was never so good, better...

There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar. by Amy Bloom

There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar.

good-writers liars writing

It takes something to get married: nerve, hope, a strong desire to make a certain statement - and it takes something to stay married: more hope, determination, a sense of humor, and needs that are best met by being in a pair.

strong determination desire

Men do not know what they do not know, and women should not tell... by Amy Bloom

Men do not know what they do not know, and women should not tell them.

should knows men

Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are. by Amy Bloom

Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.

knowing-who-you-are intimacy persons

I have made the best and happiest ending that I can in this world, made it out of the flax and netting and leftover trim of someone else's life, I know, but made it to keep the innocent safe and the guilty punished, and I have made it as the world should be and not as I have found it.

guilty safe world

You cannot fake effort; talent is great, but perseverance is nece... by Amy Bloom

You cannot fake effort; talent is great, but perseverance is necessary.

perseverance effort fake

I wasn't surprised to find myself in the back of Mr. Klein's store, wearing only my undershirt and panties, surrounded by sable.

To hold happiness is to hold the understanding that the world passes away from us, that the petals fall and the beloved dies. No amount of mockery, no amount of fashionable scowling will keep any of us from knowing and savoring the pleasure of the sun on our faces or save us from the adult understanding that it cannot last forever.

knowing forever fall