The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you. Amy Bloom More Quotes by Amy Bloom More Quotes From Amy Bloom Actual happiness is sometimes confused with the pursuit of it; and the most mindless and crass how-tos can get jumbled in with the modestly useful, the appealingly personal, and the genuinely interesting. Amy Bloom personalconfusedhappinesssometimes I'm overall a big fan of President Obama. Amy Bloom big-fanfanbigpresident I think the impulse to get to the heart of the story and to tell it well is in my genes. Amy Bloom storytellthinkheart 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 youcreativityimaginationfacts Plays are wonderfully different than short stories, first because it's a story that's on a stage, but there's a different sort of tension that appears on stage - you get to see your characters in a different way - like with lights. Amy Bloom shortlightsyouway I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too. Amy Bloom feelthinktimebelieve I don't think writers really choose their subjects. I think the subjects, the topics, the themes, choose us, and then we make the most of what we have. For Trollope, society; for Roth, Jews. For me, apparently, love. Why hide it? Amy Bloom thinkmesocietylove We have our insides and our outsides, and I find the struggles between the two, as well as the occasions of harmony between the two, fascinating. Amy Bloom wellfindharmonytwo I'm a grown woman. I can come up with plenty of things that I've done and said or didn't say or failed to do that remain with me as sources of embarrassment. Amy Bloom womanmei-candone My father certainly believed that one could make a living outside of an office, as he did. And that if I didn't want to work for other people, there wasn't any reason why I had to. He conveyed that very strongly to my sister and I - that smart people can make their own livings. Amy Bloom smartworkfatherpeople I've had a family my entire adult life; I started raising kids when I was 21. I suspect that being part of a family has probably informed my life as a writer as much as anything else has. Amy Bloom my-lifebeingfamilylife My father would have been spectacularly ill-suited to working for an institution of any kind, and I suspect that, to a lesser degree, that's true of me, too. Amy Bloom degreetruemefather I usually don't have to do a lot of research in my work, as I'm writing about something I'm already familiar with. Amy Bloom somethingresearchworkwriting I do have a sister. I have never written much about sisters before. I am very close to my sister, but, maybe, because we are very close, it never occurred to me to write about her. Amy Bloom i-amnevermesister Keep your mouth shut and see what's happening around you. Don't finish people's sentences for them. Don't just hear what they say, but also how they behave while they're saying it. That was great training for writing. Amy Bloom greatyoutrainingpeople My grandmother tended to divide life into 'nice' and 'not so nice.' Life in America, her apartment, her grandchildren: 'nice'; life before 1915: 'not so nice.' That's all I heard. Amy Bloom grandchildrennicelifeamerica I assume as a writer that most of the time I'm going to fall down and fail. Amy Bloom faildowntimefall
