The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft. Marisa Silver More Quotes by Marisa Silver More Quotes From Marisa Silver Because answers are inert things that stop inquiry. They make you think you have finished looking. But you are never finished. There are always discoveries that will turn everything you think you know on its head and that will make you ask all over again: Who are we? Marisa Silver make-you-think discovery thinking But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives. Marisa Silver fashion form age Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child? Marisa Silver trying children people Writing, for me, is always a dance between the critical part of my brain and the subconscious. Marisa Silver subconscious brain writing I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book. Marisa Silver knows book We are like flowers always reaching up towards some shred of light. I find this wondrous, nearly magical, certainly brave. Marisa Silver reaching-up light flower I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships. Marisa Silver endurance hardship people I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is formed around these prevailing attitudes. Marisa Silver attitude order people As we change, the way in which we are perceived in terms of our relevance, our value, our beauty, and sexual potency changes. Marisa Silver potency term way We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die. Marisa Silver birth age giving The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque. Marisa Silver language sometimes facts Things, very strange things, happen in folktales and there is never much attention given to the whys and wherefores. Marisa Silver folktales strange attention In fact, not knowing is a necessary condition of writing for me. I don't know how else to reach something unexpected. I have to be as in the dark as my characters. Marisa Silver dark writing character