You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.
BARRY HANNAHRandomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.
More Barry Hannah Quotes
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I’ll tell you why I like writing: it’s just jumping into a pool. I get myself into a kind of trance. I engage the world, but it’s also wonderful to just escape. I try to find the purities out of the confusion. It’s pretty old-fashioned, but it’s fun.
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I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It’s a myth. There’s so much bad gun stuff.
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I don’t write under the ghost of Faulkner. I live in the same town and find his life and work inspiring, but that’s it. I have a motorcycle and tool along the country lanes. I travel at my own speed.
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Time is what makes good stories. Much has been cooking for a long time, and at last finds an out in narration one day. That’s a supreme joy. And why the characters keep showing up.
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I wanted very much to be Miles Davis when I was a boy, but without the practice. It just looked like an endless road.
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My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.
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What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is… We are all overbrained and overemotioned.
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I wouldn’t buy somebody’s album on a dare if they called him a musician’s musician. I don’t write to be a writer’s writer. I don’t want to be like the little-magazine writer.
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You’ve got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself.
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I don’t really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.
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I found out about reviews early on. They’re mostly written by sad men on bad afternoons. That’s probably why I’m less angry than some writers, who are so narcissistic they consider every line of every review, even a thoughtful one, as major treason.
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Literature is the history of the soul.
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I always intended to be light and open. I misjudged the American audience.
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If you are able to explain suffering, a man once told him, you weren’t really there.
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I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they’re not. They’re not out there waiting. They’re not gonna use their intelligence on your book.
BARRY HANNAH