Among other things, autoimmune disorders are an induction into a world of unstable information and no reliable expertise.
BEN MARCUSMy first book, ‘The Age of Wire and String,’ came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.
More Ben Marcus Quotes
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In certain strains of Judaism, there’s a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can’t possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we’re off track.
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Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.
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I’m an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard’s books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work – the pursuit of darkness, the negative – and I think in some sense I’ve internalised that as what one is supposed to do.
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Being with him was like being alone underwater – everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced.
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My first book, ‘The Age of Wire and String,’ came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.
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The common, the quotidian, is so much more unyielding to me, really stubborn and hard to work with, and I like this because it makes me think and it makes me worry. I can’t just plunge my hand into the meat of it. I need new approaches.
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I’m attracted to how fraught the parent-child relationship is, swerving so easily between love and hostility, with almost no plausible way to end, unless someone dies.
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Rain is used as white noise when God is disgusted by too much prayer, when the sky is stuffed to bursting with the noise of what people need.
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My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.
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I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O’Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard.
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My goal, with whatever I’m working on, is to lose track of time.
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Fiction is too complicated and too elusive to break down into a set of tricks.
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Suspense left my life a long time ago, now it has returned. I do not care for it.
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You can test things out without terrible consequences. Or maybe the consequences are there, but they are deferred, buried, much harder to detect.
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Eventually you stop paying attention to your own feelings when there’s nothing to be done about them.
BEN MARCUS