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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

I always intended to be light and open. I misjudged the American audience.
BARRY HANNAH

Audience Country Light Misjudge
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

Book Intelligent Writing
You’ve got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself.
BARRY HANNAH

Halfway Interested Lie Lying
A writers job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.
BARRY HANNAH

Chosen Jobs Mean
I do believe that as you write more and age, the arrogance and most of the vanity goes. Or it is a vanity met with vast gratitude, that you were hit by something as you stood in the way of it, that anybody is listening.
BARRY HANNAH

Belief Gratitude Writing
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
Voice comes to you through a spell, a trance. The best voices are not you… they’re a little away from you.
BARRY HANNAH

Away Littles Trance Voice
I wanted very much to be Miles Davis when I was a boy, but without the practice. It just looked like an endless road.
BARRY HANNAH

Boys Endless Practice
I wake my wife up at 3 a.m. and say, “Listen to this!”
BARRY HANNAH

Inspiration Listen Love Say Wife
If you are able to explain suffering, a man once told him, you weren’t really there.
BARRY HANNAH

Able Men Suffering
What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is… We are all overbrained and overemotioned.
BARRY HANNAH

Bogs Essence Labyrinth
Most novels I come across have all the excitement of a long trip on a bus with a sensitive glee club. Yammer and chat.
BARRY HANNAH

Clubs Glee Long
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
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
Literature is the history of the soul.
BARRY HANNAH

History Literature Soul
I don’t really believe in a creative-writing major as an undergraduate. It’s a bad idea, terrible. I’ve met creative-writing majors from other places and they don’t know a goddamn thing. They’re the worst students. They just think they’re good because they could pass.
BARRY HANNAH

Believe Thinking Writing

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barry Hannah Quotes