Smoke veils the air like souls in drifting suspension, declining the war's insistence everyone move on. Jayne Anne Phillips More Quotes by Jayne Anne Phillips More Quotes From Jayne Anne Phillips Literature can teach us how to live before we live, and how to die before we die. I believe that writing is practice for death, and for every (other) transformation human beings encounter. Jayne Anne Phillips practicewritingbelieve Towns change; they grow or diminish, but hometowns remain as we left them. Jayne Anne Phillips hometowntownsgrows I write line by line, by the sound and the weight and the music of the words. Jayne Anne Phillips weightsoundwriting If death is this brilliant slide, this high, fine music felt as pure vibration, this plunging float in wind and silence, it's not so bad. Jayne Anne Phillips vibrationssilencewind If all stories are fiction, fiction can be true -- not in detail or fact, but in some transformed version of feeling. If there is a memory of paradise, paradise can exist, in some other place or country dimensionally reminiscent of our own. The sad stories live there too, but in that country, we know what they mean and why they happened. We make our way back from them, finding the way through a bountiful wilderness we begin to understand. Years are nothing: Story conquers all distance. Jayne Anne Phillips distancememoriescountry I wish I had more time to write. Jayne Anne Phillips more-timewishwriting As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening. Jayne Anne Phillips silencesightlistening Love is the outlaw's duty. Jayne Anne Phillips outlawdutylove-is When the year turns, there are bells on the wind. All the old years fall on the ground in lights. Jayne Anne Phillips lightyearsfall Then he's inside you, and your body remembers, each time, every man, even if you try to forget. Jayne Anne Phillips bodytryingmen Talk between women friends is always therapy. Jayne Anne Phillips therapy The writer's first affinity is not to a loyalty, a tradition, a morality, a religion, but to life itself, and to its representation in language. Jayne Anne Phillips moralityloyaltyfirsts The writing life is a secret life, wither we admit it or not. Jayne Anne Phillips secretlife-iswriting It's my theory that many writers were the confidantes of one or the other parent. I was my mother's confidante; she had been her mother's confidante. Jayne Anne Phillips hersheparentmother That whole business of having two homes, and that divided loyalty bind that kids get into. I mean, my parents were divorced - though I was adult - but I still grappled with being responsible to both of them. Jayne Anne Phillips parentsbeingloyaltybusiness I'm a language-oriented writer who proceeds sentence by sentence. Jayne Anne Phillips proceedssentencewriterwho I don't outline; I listen to a kind of whisper inside the material. Jayne Anne Phillips whisperlisteninsidekind Character and story are suggested by the voice in the words themselves. Jayne Anne Phillips wordsstoryvoicecharacter I don't do much rewriting, because each paragraph is very carefully put together. Jayne Anne Phillips verybecauseparagraphtogether I don't investigate things by writing about them, but let them build up inside of me. Jayne Anne Phillips insidethingsmewriting
