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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

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

Inspiration Listen Love Say Wife
Love and despair go hand in hand.
BARRY HANNAH

Despair Feel Hands Love
I hate to be fatalistic about it, but alcoholism, it’s just in your genes. We had some of it in my family, and it just got me.
BARRY HANNAH

Alcoholism Family Genes Hate
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
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 Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl.
BARRY HANNAH

Deep Howl Wretched
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.
BARRY HANNAH

Fun Jumping Writing
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
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
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.
BARRY HANNAH

Afternoon Men Thoughtful
Literature is the history of the soul.
BARRY HANNAH

History Literature Soul
Professional Southerners sicken me.
BARRY HANNAH

Professional Sicken Southerner
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
You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.
BARRY HANNAH

Great Hell Joy Needs
I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I’m glad I was disabused.
BARRY HANNAH

Drinking Love 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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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