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  • Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.
  • Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.
  • Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.
  • Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.
  • Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.
  • Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.
  1. black
  2. grey
  3. blue
  4. red
  5. brown
  6. white

Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.

Ben Lerner

More Ben Lerner Quotes

  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - If I was a poet, I had become one because poetry, more intensely than any other practice, could not evade its anachronism and marginality and so constituted a kind of acknowledgment of my own preposterousness, admitting my bad faith in good faith, so to speak.

    If I was a poet, I had become one because poetry, more intensely than any other practice, could not evade its anachronism and marginality and so constituted a kind of acknowledgment of my own preposterousness, admitting my bad faith in good faith, so to speak.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I like to think – knowing that it’s an enabling fiction – of those moments as fragments from a world to come, a world where price isn’t the only measure of value.

    I like to think – knowing that it’s an enabling fiction – of those moments as fragments from a world to come, a world where price isn’t the only measure of value.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I remember I had this recurring dream that we were playing a night game and instead of eye black we had mashed up the glowing bodies of fireflies and put that under our eyes. So our faces were glowing – a kind of night vision. Download This Image

    I remember I had this recurring dream that we were playing a night game and instead of eye black we had mashed up the glowing bodies of fireflies and put that under our eyes. So our faces were glowing – a kind of night vision.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I don’t think “I’m going to publish this as fiction” but I think “I’m going to tell this story to a friend” and then I start telling the story in my mind as the experience transpires as a way of pretending it’s already happened.

    I don’t think “I’m going to publish this as fiction” but I think “I’m going to tell this story to a friend” and then I start telling the story in my mind as the experience transpires as a way of pretending it’s already happened.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Maggie Nelson cuts through our culture’s prefabricated structures of thought and feeling with an intelligence whose ferocity is ultimately in the service of love. No piety is safe, no orthodoxy, no easy irony. The scare quotes burn off like fog. Download This Image

    Maggie Nelson cuts through our culture’s prefabricated structures of thought and feeling with an intelligence whose ferocity is ultimately in the service of love. No piety is safe, no orthodoxy, no easy irony. The scare quotes burn off like fog.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - When the narrator feels like an octopus, when he says his limbs are starting to multiply, he means he has inklings of orders of perception beyond his individual body. Download This Image

    When the narrator feels like an octopus, when he says his limbs are starting to multiply, he means he has inklings of orders of perception beyond his individual body.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Many of the left thinkers that really matter to me – that formed a big part of my thinking about politics and art – emphasize how capitalism is a totality, how there’s no escape from it, no outside. Download This Image

    Many of the left thinkers that really matter to me – that formed a big part of my thinking about politics and art – emphasize how capitalism is a totality, how there’s no escape from it, no outside.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I’ve been building a fiction in part around the Marfa poem since my brief residency there, which has kept it from receding into the past.

    I’ve been building a fiction in part around the Marfa poem since my brief residency there, which has kept it from receding into the past.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you’ve the chance.

    Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you’ve the chance.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Every relationship can feel saturated by market logic or at best purchased at the price of the immiseration of others. Download This Image

    Every relationship can feel saturated by market logic or at best purchased at the price of the immiseration of others.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

    Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Maybe that’s the way I’m private – I respect the privacy of “my” characters? Anyway, we’re getting close to the whole “relatability” and “likability” thing.

    Maybe that’s the way I’m private – I respect the privacy of “my” characters? Anyway, we’re getting close to the whole “relatability” and “likability” thing.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - My concern is how we live fictions, how fictions have real effects, become facts in that sense, and how our experience of the world changes depending on its arrangement into one narrative or another.

    My concern is how we live fictions, how fictions have real effects, become facts in that sense, and how our experience of the world changes depending on its arrangement into one narrative or another.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I didn’t want to write another book about fraudulence. Download This Image

    I didn’t want to write another book about fraudulence.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - What interests me about fiction is, in part, its flickering edge between realism and where a tear in the fabric of a story lets in some other sort of light. Download This Image

    What interests me about fiction is, in part, its flickering edge between realism and where a tear in the fabric of a story lets in some other sort of light.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I wasn’t aware I’d write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.

    I wasn’t aware I’d write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.

    BEN LERNER