You know, it's sort of common wisdom among New York publishers that short story collections don't make money. Chad Harbach More Quotes by Chad Harbach More Quotes From Chad Harbach People thought becoming an adult meant that all your acts had consequences; in fact it was just the opposite. Chad Harbach adultsoppositespeople I mean, first, almost all writers these days teach because they don't make enough money publishing to live on, to support themselves - people like Tobias Wolff, Anne Beattie, Amy Hempel, Stuart Dybek; a lot of short story writers, for one thing. Chad Harbach supportmeanpeople Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you. Chad Harbach basketballbaseballsoccer It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before. Chad Harbach writingfunbook You are skilled. I exhort you. Chad Harbach Other things awaited. It was good to be young and to know it for once. So much unfolding to do. Chad Harbach unfoldingyoungknows Heat radiated off Henry's face. Salty snot ran down his upper lip. A majestic fart propelled him to the top of Section 12, just at the springing of the stadium's curve. He slapped the sign as if high-fiving a teammate. It gave back a game shudder. He was crusing now, darkness be damned, stripping off his sweatshirt and his long underwear top without breaking stride. Chad Harbach curvesgamesrunning Getting your foot in the door with some publishing people can be important when you're starting out as a writer, but it's also not enough to get you where you need to be. Chad Harbach feetdoorspeople It was strange the way he loved her; a side long and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention. Chad Harbach matterlovelong Each of us, deep down, believes that the whole world issues from his own precious body, like images projected from a tiny slide onto an earth-sized screen. And then, deeper down, each of us knows he's wrong. Chad Harbach world-issueslifebelieve There are things you do when you're writing that are so fun to do it's almost like they're private jokes that are amusing to you but no one else is going to enjoy them nearly as much and you worry you're going to have to take them out in the end. Chad Harbach worrywritingfun A lot of writers choose to live in New York, partly because of the literary culture here, and partly because Brooklyn's a pretty nice place to live. And a lot of writers who might not geographically reside in New York still point their ambitions towards New York in some sense. Chad Harbach niceambitionnew-york But baseball was different... You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you f****d up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error, but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see? ... You could only try so hard not to try too hard before you were right back around to trying too hard. And trying hard, as everyone told him, was wrong, all wrong. Chad Harbach errorsbaseballsports To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea. Chad Harbach parentwritingideas He already knew he could coach. All you had to do was look at each of your players and ask yourself: What story does this guy wish someone would tell him about himself? And then you told the guy that story. Chad Harbach guyplayersports If you're part of any kind of writerly community, some of those people will have gone through MFA programs, and their thinking leaks into yours. So whatever changes MFAs have made to the culture, it's to the culture as a whole. It can't be pinned down to individual books in a way that some people would like to do. Chad Harbach bookpeoplethinking There are no whys in a person's life, and very few hows. In the end, in search of useful wisdom, you could only come back to the most hackneyed concepts, like kindness, forbearance, infinite patience. Solomon and Lincoln: This too shall pass. Damn right it will. Or Chekhov: Nothing passes. Equally true. Chad Harbach chekhovinfinitekindness The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not. Chad Harbach somedayhuman-conditionalive The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium. Chad Harbach mediumsnovelform The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities. Chad Harbach readingwritingthinking
