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 CAMPBELLI hope that my stories serve as explorations and help show readers how and why real-life women don’t always make the “correct” decisions in the face of economic and sexual troubles.
More Bonnie Jo Campbell Quotes
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My donkeys are Jack and Don Quixote. They’re very smart, very cautious. Much of what people consider stubbornness in donkeys is actually cautiousness.
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I do different work, teaching and running around visiting universities and bookstores, and that prevents me from writing. But it’s nice to be wanted as a writer.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL -
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.
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I loved writing for the school newspaper. I liked to report and interview people, but I really liked to write columns, funny columns.
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Men didn’t understand that you couldn’t let yourself be consumed with passion when there were so many people needing your attention, when there was so much work to do.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL -
Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL -
I thought that you had to learn to write by yourself and if you couldn’t do it, then you were out of luck.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL -
I mostly write about the working poor. Somehow, they’re not being written about much anymore.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL -
I hope that my stories serve as explorations and help show readers how and why real-life women don’t always make the “correct” decisions in the face of economic and sexual troubles.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL -
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.
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I’m very interested in people who are in a situation that needs a little puzzling out. The thing that gets me started on a story is a person in a tough situation.
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Being five-foot-ten at fourteen years old was a little bit scary.
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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 -
A Life in Men is a joyful, ambitious novel that is also an adventure traversing three continents, as well as a meditation on love, sex, and, most important, friendship, which can overcome time, distance, and even death.
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In a regular class I don’t focus on the form, but I think that focus is helpful for brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly, especially with autobiographical material.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL






