Home / Quotes / Quote by Ben Lerner

Quote by Ben Lerner

“I don't think "I'm going to publish this as fiction" but I think "I'm going to tell this story to a friend" and then I start telling the story in my mind as the experience transpires as a way of pretending it's already happened.”

Quote by Ben Lerner

Author

Ben Lerner

Ben Lerner, born on February 4, 1979, is an American poet known for his unique style and profound reflections on contemporary social issues. more

“I'm aware of narrating certain experiences as they happen or obliterating those experiences with narrative and then those stories - not the experiences themselves - might become material for art. This kind of transformation shows up a lot in 10:04 because the book tracks the transposition of fact into fiction in the New Yorker stor”

Kind Art Book Facts Stories Shows Might Happens Certain Fiction Materials Transformation Track Narrative New Yorkers

Author:Ben Lerner

“Maybe now if you're not an exhibitionist you're private. Or maybe it's just that for a lot of people - sometimes in interesting ways, sometimes in stupid ways - there's no division between the art object and what surrounds it.”

People Ifs Way Art Sometimes Interesting Stupid Objects Division Surround Interesting Ways Exhibitionist

Author:Ben Lerner

“Your interviews or blog posts or whatever are less supplements to your novel than part of it. I'm not private, but I believe in literary form - I'll use my life as material for art (I don't know how not to do this) and I'll use art as a way of exploring that passage of life into art and vice versa, but that's not the same thing as thinking that any of the details of my life are interesting or relevant on their own.”

Thinking Knows Way Believe Art Use Form I Believe Interesting Novel Know How Materials Vices Details I Believe In Posts Interviews Passages Relevant Exploring Blogs Vice Versa Supplements

Author:Ben Lerner

“I'm defending fiction as a human capacity more than as a popular or dying literary genre.”

Humans Fiction Dying Capacity Genre Human Capacity Literary Genre

Author:Ben Lerner

“Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.”

Ifs Writing Stories Fiction Novel Criticism Weak Experiments Short Story Lively

Author:Ben Lerner

“Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. "Ari" appears on the edge of this book a couple of times - but on the edge, she's never in it, even if she's a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.”

People Ifs Firsts Made Two Book Real Force Novel Couple Edges Scratches

Author:Ben Lerner

“Fiction doesn't appeal to me because it can describe physical appearances exhaustively or because it can offer access to the inner depths of an array of human characters - neither that kind of "realism" of bodily surfaces nor of individual psychologies seems particularly realistic to me.”

Humans Kind Character Seems Individual Fiction Psychology Offers Depth Appearance Surface Access Appeals Realistic Realism Physical Appearance

Author:Ben Lerner

“God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest.”

Giving Doe God Success Humanity Work Animal Effort Bird Godly Nests Hustle Work Effort Effort And Hard Work Bird Watching

Author:J. G. Holland

“In art and life we're always reading bodies and behaviors (and skies and skylines or whatever), constructing brief and shifting coherences, and I guess I want to capture that process of characterization and re-characterization instead of offering up a few stable, easily-summarized individuals.”

Want Art Body Reading Individual Process Sky Behavior Capture Offering Stable Shifting Coherence Characterization Skylines Art And Life

Author:Ben Lerner

Quote by Ben Lerner

Author

You May Also Like