“I read everything I could find in English - Twain, Henry James, Hemingway, really everything. And then after a while I started writing shorter pieces in English, and one of them got published in a literary magazine and that's how it got started. After that, graduate school didn't seem very important.” WritingImportantSeemsSchoolPiecesMagazinesGraduatesGraduate School Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I want a book to contain a world - indeed the world. Writing is my main means of engagement with the world and I want the scars of that engagement to be left in the language.” WorldWantWritingMeanBookLeftLanguageEngagementScar Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I write and read with the assumption that literature contains knowledge of human experience that is not available otherwise.” WritingHumansLiteratureAvailableAssumptionHuman Experience Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Rilke said that art can come only out of inner necessity. I write because I must. Or because I cannot not write.” WritingArtSaid Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“For a fight to be productive, or at least relevant, writers should fight over different demands they put upon writing (as an individual, private act) and literature (a network of relations in which we are all involved).” ShouldWritingDifferentFightingLiteratureIndividualInvolvedDemandRelationProductiveRelevant Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“No reader owes me anything - I am owed nothing for my noble efforts, because my writing was always unconditional, always coming out of inner necessity.” WritingEffortReaderNobleComing OutUnconditional Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I hate traveling and being away from my family. But I like meeting my readers, as what I write is actualized in them. Those encounters are exhilarating to me.” WritingHateReaderMy FamilyI HateMeetingsEncountersExhilarating Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Writing is a mode of agency in the world that is different from mere employment. There has to be some sort of ethical or moral drive, even if you are unaware of it.” IfsWorldWritingDifferentMoralMereEmploymentAgencyEthical Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it.” WritingLanguageAshamedBad Writing Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“There are many things I think about that never get to the point of becoming serious. In other words, I try to talk myself out of writing, sometimes for many years, and when I run out of arguments, I write.” ThinkingWritingTryingYearsSometimesRunningSeriousBecomingArgument Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I'm not nervous if I think about something for nine years and then I don't write it. Even if it fades it doesn't concern me. It'll come back if it's worth it.” IfsThinkingWritingYearsConcernNineNervousFadesWorth ItNine Years Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I don't believe in inspiration. I write when I can't avoid writing anymore.” WritingBelieveI CanInspirationDon't Believe Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I end up writing something every day, since I develop six or seven things at the same time - soccer columns, this and that.” WritingEndsSixSevenSoccerColumns Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Sometimes I don't write at all. Someone once asked me, "What do you do when you're not writing?" And I said, "I idle."” WritingSaidSometimesIdle Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“The beauty of literature - also its limit - is that it is inescapably personal, even if you're writing science fiction.” IfsWritingLiteratureFictionLimitsScience Fiction Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I want to make money, and I would like to have a lot of money, but I still believe that the only reason to write is that somehow it will make something or somebody better.” WantWritingBelieveStillsReasonMaking MoneyLots Of MoneyI Still Believe Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls.” WritingI CanSpacePiecesParticularWallReturnProviding Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I actually didn't listen to the Beatles song 'Nowhere Man' when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was 'Abbey Road.' Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me.” MenWritingBookSongNamesDelightReadinessAbbeyAbbey Road 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
“I cannot live or write without music. It stimulates the normally dormant parts of my brain that come in handy when constructing fiction.” WritingBrainFictionHandyDormantWithout Music Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I long for, not a writer's retreat - I can write in any situation - but a reader's retreat.” WritingLongI CanSituationReaderRetreat Author:Aleksandar Hemon
