• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

I’m not much interested in my own self when I write. I’m interested in what I observe out there, what’s going on around me.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Related Topics

MuchOwnSelfWriting

Popular Authors

Marilyn Monroe Paulo Coelho Abraham Lincoln C. S. Lewis Khalil Gibran Charlie Chaplin Gautama Buddha Isaac Newton

| Next

More Bonnie Jo Campbell Quotes

• 

  I’m of the people in the bar and the people in my stories. They are my tribe.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  BarsPeopleStories
• 

  Eighty percent of all novels are bought by women, or so I’ve heard.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  HeardNovelPercent
• 

  We know that we need to explore desire in fiction – many say that the only way a story exists is that a character feels a strong desire – and nature is the place where creatures act on their desires in the most pure way imaginable.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  CharacterEmotionalStrong
• 

  If you have someone falling out of the boat, you’d have to drag the boat up the river and film the same scene ten times, every time, dragging the boat exactly where it was up the river.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  BoatFallFilmRiversSceneTime
• 

  You can’t beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  BeatsMarriedWriting
• 

  I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  SpecificityThinkingWriting
• 

  A mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you’re finished, it’s really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  BeautifulProofStories
• 

  That was a mistake, I guess, going out to California. They have these things called guidance counselors in high school. They drink a lot of herbal tea.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  CaliforniaMistakeSchool
• 

  Since I’m living with the violence and trouble in my brain, it’s kind of a relief to write about it, to get it on paper, to put it in context, to find meaning in it.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  ContextMeaningTroubleViolence
• 

  Nobody tells young writers it’s okay if you’re not very good, you’ll get better. So I just thought I’m not very good, so I should try to do every other thing besides writing. That’s how I ended up being a hitchhiker, a world traveler, and a mathematician.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  BetterTryingWriting
• 

  After a year, it was great to get out of L.A. and return to Hyde Park. Since my grandparents lived in Hyde Park, I had been coming there since I was a tyke.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  GrandparentHydeYears
• 

  For ‘King Cole’s American Salvage,’ I rode around in the wrecker with a local driver and watched him deal with customers and hook up the cars.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  CarHookKingsLoveWatched
• 

  I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I’ve been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I’ve been pretty lucky.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  JobsRealThinking
• 

  I have a second-degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo weapons training.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  BlackDegreesTraining
• 

  Writing is so wrapped up in ego, but with math one is just trying to get it right, although you’re often wrong. I think math helped me become a good critic of myself, come at writing a little less personally.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  HelpMathThinkingWriting
• 

  I figure that I’m always going to be fine, one way or another, but I do worry about other people who have difficulty moving from one world to the next. It’s the folks who are truly invested in their lives who have the hardest time with change.

  BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
  ChangeHardestMovingPeopleWorry