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My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

Barry Hannah

I distrust thought. The interior life is highly overrated. I don’t like the wispy and the vague… or inductive logic in any kind of writing. I’m impatient with writers who make too much sense. The better things that I’ve done have come to me by instinct.
BARRY HANNAH

Done Much Too Vague Writing
Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.
BARRY HANNAH

Joy Narrative Pain
I was always kind of florid. And full of rhetoric. That was my flaw. My whole time writing, I’ve had to work against that because it can be a wrecking posture.
BARRY HANNAH

Flaws Kind Writing
Where is the angry machine of all of us? Why is God such a blurred magician? Why are you begging for your life if you believe those things? Prove to me that you’re better than the rabbits we ate last night.
BARRY HANNAH

Believe Night Rabbits
I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.
BARRY HANNAH

Art Hurt People
I wake my wife up at 3 a.m. and say, “Listen to this!”
BARRY HANNAH

Inspiration Listen Love Say Wife
I don’t really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.
BARRY HANNAH

Care Different Plot
When you’re not involved, other people’s unhappiness seems to be about the funniest damn thing on earth because you think you can solve it, that you are God, that you are above this, and that their unhappiness is just such useless toil and agony. If it’s you, it ceases to be a comedy.
BARRY HANNAH

Agony People Thinking
The wild stuff is all so overrated. Drinking, you don’t feel good all the time. There’s a lot of down, a lot of misery.
BARRY HANNAH

Drinking Feel Good Stuff
The alcohol had the code and mystery about it as a writer’s drug, but I’m glad that’s been debunked. But the trouble with the drinking, much as I hate to admit it, is it helped the work.
BARRY HANNAH

Alcohol Drinking Hate
My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.
BARRY HANNAH

Concern Form Stories
What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is… We are all overbrained and overemotioned.
BARRY HANNAH

Bogs Essence Labyrinth
You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.
BARRY HANNAH

Great Hell Joy Needs
My stories do have plot. They’re not just scattered language; they’re controlled, toward an end.
BARRY HANNAH

Language Plot Stories
You’ve got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself.
BARRY HANNAH

Halfway Interested Lie Lying
The point is to strip down, get protestant, then even more naked. Walk over scorched bricks to find your own soul. Your heart a searching dog in the rubble.
BARRY HANNAH

Dog Heart Soul

My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

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My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

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