“Literature is always something - it is either story or poetry, ideally both. That is, you always know what it is and even if the interpretation is not available, the experience of language is.” IfsKnowsStoriesLiteratureLanguageAvailableInterpretation Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Language is so inherent to humanity, so necessary for even basic thinking, that stories and poetry are available to anyone who can process language.” ThinkingStoriesHumanityLanguageProcessAvailableInherent Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“As long as there are living human beings, there will be language and stories.” HumansLongStoriesLanguageHuman BeingsBeing There Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Chicago is not a bad place to live. But the usual story of immigration is the happy fulfillment of human potential in America that is not available anywhere else - it's propaganda, really. It's more complicated than that.” HumansStoriesAmericaAvailableComplicatedImmigrationPropagandaFulfillmentChicagoUsualPlaces To LiveHuman Potential Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I think about the story while I think about other things. This is an important part of the process: I look at it sideways. If I look straight at it, it produces nothing other than what seem like complicated, brilliant designs that fall apart the following morning. In some way stories mature when you're not looking.” IfsThinkingWayLooksImportantStoriesSeemsFallProcessMorningDesignProduceFollowingComplicatedBrilliantMatureFalling ApartSideways Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Even if you tried to extinguish your personality, what is left in the story will reflect it, perhaps by its negation. Our lives provide the bricks from which we build these cathedrals.” IfsStoriesLeftOur LivesPersonalityBricksCathedralsNegation Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“You devise ways to tell a story that complies with your sensibility. Style and method are really extensions of your present sensibility.” WayStoriesStyleMethodSensibilityExtensions Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“It is my belief that we as human beings have a need to tell stories - I think it's evolutionary. So you can think of the short story as a literary form, or you can instead think of stories.” ThinkingNeedsHumansStoriesFormBeliefHuman BeingsShort Story Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“There's something in psychology called the narrative paradigm, which essentially means that we think of our lives as stories in which we are the main characters.” ThinkingMeanCharacterStoriesPsychologyOur LivesNarrativeParadigmMain Characters Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“There are studies that have shown that we make decisions, ethical and otherwise, based on the way we imagine ourselves as characters in the stories of our lives. In other words, if we imagine ourselves brave or crazy or open, we're more likely to make decisions in a given situation based on how we imagine ourselves, whatever the facts may be.” IfsWayMayCharacterFactsStoriesGivenDecisionSituationStudyOur LivesImagineCrazyBraveEthical Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“People will always tell stories. The publishing industry might vanish, but not stories.” PeopleStoriesMightIndustryPublishingPublishing Industry Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“The way I think of my work is that I have to think up the way to tell a story, starting from scratch. The changes in the industry concern me in a general way because I think civilization is doomed.” ThinkingWayStoriesIndustryCivilizationConcernStartingDoomedScratches Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“In some way there is no real life. It's always the story of your life that you're living.” WayRealStoriesReal Life Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“There's a social and human necessity for some kind of continuity, but it's not axiomatic and not something you're born into; it's something you have to work at. And one of the ways to work at it - perhaps the best - is storytelling: telling stories about yourself to others, telling stories about yourself to yourself, telling stories about others to others.” WayHumansKindStoriesSocialBornStorytellingAbout YourselfContinuityTelling Stories Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“You have to suspend thinking in narratives. The moment you are conscious of yourself the gap opens up. And in this gap, stories are generated.” ThinkingMomentsStoriesConsciousNarrativeGaps Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“It is so much easier to deal with the dead than with the living. The dead are out of the way, merely characters from stories about the past, never again unreadable, no misunderstandings possible, the pain coming from them stable and manageable. nor do you have to explain yourself to them, to justify the fact of your life.” WayCharacterFactsStoriesPainPastDealsEasierJustifyStableMisunderstandingManageableExplain Yourself Book:The Lazarus Project Source: The Lazarus Project
“I tend to wait for true stories to mature into fiction. Most of my fiction grew out of a long-germinating real-life situation.” LongRealStoriesWaitingFictionSituationGrewReal LifeMatureTrue Story Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I am a writer, which means I write stories, I write novels, and I would write poetry if I knew how to. I don't want to limit myself.” IfsWantWritingMeanStoriesNovelLimits Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house it was to salvage photos.” PeopleIfsStoriesRunningHouseObjectsAccessHolesBurningBosniaRunning BackSalvageBurning House Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“To me there's no difference between a book of stories and a novel - they're just slightly different shapes.” BookDifferentStoriesDifferencesNovelShapes Author:Aleksandar Hemon
