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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

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 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
Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?
BARRY HANNAH

Children Grew Parents Up
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
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
Time is what makes good stories. Much has been cooking for a long time, and at last finds an out in narration one day. That’s a supreme joy. And why the characters keep showing up.
BARRY HANNAH

Character Joy Long
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 stories do have plot. They’re not just scattered language; they’re controlled, toward an end.
BARRY HANNAH

Language Plot Stories
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
Professional Southerners sicken me.
BARRY HANNAH

Professional Sicken Southerner
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
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 wouldn’t buy somebody’s album on a dare if they called him a musician’s musician. I don’t write to be a writer’s writer. I don’t want to be like the little-magazine writer.
BARRY HANNAH

Album Musician Writing
I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It’s a myth. There’s so much bad gun stuff.
BARRY HANNAH

Gun Pistols Stuff
The Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl.
BARRY HANNAH

Deep Howl Wretched

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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