“I think most novelists I know, certainly including me, feel the novels choose them rather than vice-versa.” ThinkingKnowsFeelsNovelIncludingVicesNovelistsVice Versa Author:Steve Erickson
“I think for the foreseeable future we have to disabuse ourselves of any ideas of unifying, or coming together, or all getting along. I don't think we're going to reconcile the America that elected the first African American president with the America that just elected a president avidly endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan - I'm not sure I even want to reconcile the two.” ThinkingWantFirstsTwoIdeasTogetherAmericaPresidentAfrican AmericanNot SureReconcileComing TogetherUnifyingAmerican PresidentGetting AlongKu Klux Klan Author:Steve Erickson
“In my early twenties the nature of conservatism itself changed. When I identified as a fourteen-year-old conservative, it was closer to what we today think of as libertarianism - conservatism, at least for me, had been defined by Jeffersonian credos like "the best governed are the least governed" and "I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" that were very idealistic and romantic to a kid.” ThinkingMenYearsMindKidsTodayFormChangedEternalTwentiesConservativeTyrannyDefinedLibertarianismConservatismHostilityFourteenIdealisticCredo Author:Steve Erickson
“Out of the house and on my own, I faced the fact I didn't much like who I was. I didn't like my judgmentalism; I didn't like my absolutism. I didn't like my repression of natural empathy, my pinched lack of emotional generosity. How I had been thinking politically had less to do with what was wrong with the world and more to do with what was wrong with me, with my fears and insecurities, failings, weaknesses.” ThinkingWorldFactsHouseNaturalMy OwnFailingEmotionalEmpathyWeaknessGenerosityInsecurityRepressionAbsolutism Author:Steve Erickson
“In terms of America, I think any profound consideration is bound to return us to the notion of twins because, though you certainly can contend there are many Americas, our history has been binary from the beginning, with its hairline fracture down the country's center between what American has wanted to be and what America has been. That fracture is slavery, of course. To some extent it's still slavery, in that collectively we refuse to come to grips with the American fact of slavery.” ThinkingHas BeensStillsCountryFactsWantedAmericaCoursesTermReturnSlaveryProfoundNotionBoundsRefuseConsiderationTwinsBinaryFracture Author:Steve Erickson
“Half the country seceded from the other half when Abraham Lincoln was elected because half the country couldn't abide his position on slavery. You would think 150 years later this had all become pretty historically incontestable. Yet millions continue to contest it in the face of history. Rather the denial of slavery and all its monstrous repercussions defines to one twin America what the country is and means, and therein is the DNA of those "alternative facts" that people believe when they can't stand to believe the truth.” PeopleThinkingYearsBelieveMeanCountryFactsAmericaFacesHalfMillionsPositionSlaveryAlternativesDenialTwinsContestsDnaMonstrousAbrahamOther HalfRepercussions Author:Steve Erickson
“Obviously cheap sentimentality isn't something any good novelist wants to traffic in, but I think it's a problem if you consider it to be the most egregious of all creative sins. I think it's a problem if you consider it the thing to be avoided at all cost. I think it's a problem of you're not willing to risk the consequences of that kind of emotionalism under any circumstances. Then you wind up in the cul-de-sac of irony.” IfsThinkingWantKindProblemSinCreativeRiskWillingWindCircumstancesCostConsequenceIronyNovelistsTrafficAvoidedSentimentality Author:Steve Erickson
“While a particularly deft sense of irony may be one of the tools of great storytellers, I think it's also true that if irony serves as a retreat from an emotional engagement that you're overly concerned is uncool, that's a failure of nerve.” IfsThinkingMayEmotionalConcernedToolsIronyNervesEngagementStorytellerRetreatUncool Author:Steve Erickson
“In LA, you think you're making something up, but it's making you up.” Thinking Author:Steve Erickson
