The 'information novel' shouldn't be a curiosity. It should be absolutely mainstream. Richard Powers More Quotes by Richard Powers More Quotes From Richard Powers Maybe happiness is like a virus. Maybe it's one of those bugs that sits for a long time, so we don't even know that we are infected. Richard Powers virusesbugslong Time passes, as the novelist says. The single most useful trick of fiction for our repair and refreshment: the defeat of time. A century of family saga and a ride up an escalator can take the same number of pages. Fiction sets any conversion rate, then changes it in a syllable. The narrator’s mother carries her child up the stairs and the reader follows, for days. But World War I passes in a paragraph. I needed 125 pages to get from Labor Day to Christmas vacation. In six more words, here’s spring. Richard Powers motherspringchildren Evil is the refusal to see one's self in others. Richard Powers refusalselfevil The oldest principle of composition: repeat everything. Richard Powers compositionrepeatsprinciples Only keep still, wait, and hear, and the world will open. Richard Powers stillswaitingworld If you're going to immerse yourself in a project for three years, why not stake out a chunk of the world that is completely alien to you and go traveling? Richard Powers why-notthreeyears The loneliness of writing is that you baffle your friends and change the lives of strangers. Richard Powers strangerlonelinesswriting My dream has always been to suspend myself in space when I write, and lying horizontal in bed is the closest to doing that. Richard Powers dreamwritinglying My goal for technology has always been to reach a point where the technological mediation becomes invisible. Richard Powers invisibletechnologygoal Out of grad school, I worked as a tech writer for a while before going into computer coding for a living. Richard Powers gradcomputerschool The thing that makes reading and writing suspect in the eyes of the market economy is that it's not corrupted. Richard Powers eyereadingwriting Until I was 42, I could fit everything that I owned into two suitcases. Richard Powers suitcasesfittwo Type a few lines of code, you create an organism. Richard Powers codetypelines In 25 years of writing novels, I've never had anything that felt like writer's block. Richard Powers blockwritingyears I like to travel and connect. Richard Powers Everything interests me. Richard Powers interest Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race. Richard Powers white-manracemen I think that if the novel's task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life - technology and science. Richard Powers noveliststechnologythinking This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world. Richard Powers expressioncharacterbook The desire to live in our imagination is driven by this suspicion that we're disembodied sensibilities cobbled into our bodies. That idea has infused most of human thought since the very beginning. Richard Powers imaginationdesireideas
