Quotessence
Home / Authors / Dani Shapiro
Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingIfsWayMomentsFeelsKnowsThinkingLittlesWantTryingWellsBookPracticeWorldAbleEndsMindMovingNeedsPages

Famous Dani Shapiro Quotes

“Students sometimes tell me. that they're waiting for someone to die before they feel they can write their story. They say this sheepishly, guiltily. As if, in some way, they're wishing for that person to expire, already, so they can get on with the business of writing about them. I try to liberate my students from those tortured thoughts by telling them that they may as well just start now, because it can be more difficult to write about the dead than to write about the living. The dead can't fight back. The dead have no voice. They can't say: But that isn't how it was. You're getting it wrong. They can't say: But I loved you so. They can't say: I had no idea.”

WritingDeathLivingGuiltStorytellingRemembrance
Book:Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
Create image

“Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms.”

WritingWellsStillsDreamPathWillingWalkingShapesPagesSittingPressesPatientWideResistanceBreathingAllowingPencilsSlow DownLunaticBruisesSlowingWriting WellSitting Still
Author:Dani Shapiro
Create image

“With tremendous clarity and wisdom, Daniel Tomasulo has crafted a memoir at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Layers of time and memory—childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age—are so beautifully revealed here, a trenchant reminder that our pasts are alive inside of us. There are psychologists who can write, and writers who can psychologize, but rarely have the two met on the page with such moving, profound results.”

WritingTwoAgePastMovingMemoriesResultsAliveChildhoodMiddleMetsPagesProfoundMemoirClarityUpliftingLayersAdulthoodAdolescenceOur PastRemindersMiddle AgesPsychologistHeartbreaking
Author:Dani Shapiro
Create image

“The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.”

WorldWritingLooksCoursesAbilityDealsFailingRiskWillingEmpathyLifetimeOneselfPersistenceGentleRejectionWillingnessOpennessAgain And AgainWriting LifeBlinders
Book:Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life
Create image

“If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it.”

IfsKnowsWritingRunningDesireNamesDoubtTeacherMaterialsWake UpMoodUrgesRunnersMarathonLecturesMarathon Runners
Book:Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life
Create image