You have to really have a taste for being alone to be a writer. Paul Auster More Quotes by Paul Auster More Quotes From Paul Auster For me a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity. Paul Auster lines shapes integrity Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done. Paul Auster done trying long Those of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the bedtime story, when our mother or father would sit down beside us in the semi-dark and read from a book of fairy tales. Paul Auster mother father book Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it. Paul Auster unique done book I think if we didn't contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive. Paul Auster alive would-be thinking I've learned not to look at reviews. Early on, I did. I was always curious. Paul Auster curious ive-learned looks People who don't like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that's how life is. Paul Auster arbitrary connections people Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead. Paul Auster compelling stories feels The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I'm talking about myself very directly. Paul Auster non-fiction talking fiction There's love, and certainly children you care about more than yourself. But nevertheless, we're alone in our heads. Paul Auster nevertheless care children Even in New York, there are a lot of very attractive girls pedaling around. That just happens to be one of the nice sights in our city, seeing a young woman on a bike. Paul Auster nice girl new-york Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories. Paul Auster film-and-television passion book I don't think of myself as a metafictional writer at all. I think of myself as a classic writer, a realist writer, who tends to have flights of fancy at times, but nevertheless, my feet are mostly on the ground. Paul Auster fancy feet thinking I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went. Paul Auster breathing paris america I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn't think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape. Paul Auster age stories thinking I started out in life as a poet, I was only writing poetry all through my 20s, it wasn't until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels, I liked them. Paul Auster detectives reading writing I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table. Paul Auster tables pay way Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing. Paul Auster breathing goes-on writing I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then I type it up because sometimes it's almost illegible, and if I wait, I might not be able to read it the next day. Paul Auster next-day waiting writing You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one. Paul Auster film book interesting
