“The things we remember are often things that have great emotional importance, and so they have a lasting effect.” Quote by Paul Auster
“As Siri says, who is deeply involved with neuroscience, emotion consolidates memory, and I think that's true.” ThinkingMemoriesEmotionInvolvedNeuroscience Author:Paul Auster
“I don't have all the facts. And I might misremember. As a matter of fact, after I finished Winter Journal, I realized that I'd gotten someone's name wrong.” MatterFactsMightNamesWinterFinishedI RealizedJournalMatter Of Fact Author:Paul Auster
“There's a difference between doing memoir and writing a novel. If I had put the story of the boy killing my dog - and that was Eric also, what a little monster he was! - in a novel, even if I took it directly from life, it would be fiction.” IfsWritingLittlesStoriesWould BeDifferencesFictionBoysNovelDogKillingMonstersMemoirMy DogEricDoing Me Author:Paul Auster
“I would say that Edgar Allan Poe, [Georges] Perec, Thomas Pynchon, and [Jorge Luis] Borges are all boy-writers. These are writers who take... a kind of demonic joy in writing.” WritingKindJoyBoysDemonicBorgesAllan Poe Author:Paul Auster
“[Lev] Tolstoy is not a boy-writer. He's a grown-up. And [Fedor] Doestoeivski is not a boy-writer.” BoysLev Tolstoy Author:Paul Auster
“I'm not a boy-writer, I've never been. I wanted to be a boy-writer when I was young, and I think that held me back. I wanted to be very clever, and funny, but I'm not very clever and not terribly funny. I've finally accepted my limits, and I do what I can do.” ThinkingI CanWantedYoungCan DoBoysLimitsAcceptedCleverVery Clever Author:Paul Auster
“You can look at my autobiographical pieces as source books... But, you see, my fiction doesn't revolve around autobiographical questions.” LooksBookFictionPiecesSource Author:Paul Auster
“I use things, I steal things from my life when I want to, when I need to, or when it seems appropriate. But most of the stuff in my novels is entirely invented, ninety-five percent. And even when I do borrow something, it becomes fictionalized.” WantNeedsUseSeemsStuffNovelFivePercentStealingAppropriateNinety Author:Paul Auster
“For example, when I was writing Leviathan, which was written both in New York and in Vermont - I think there were two summers in Vermont, in that house I wrote about in Winter Journal, that broken-down house... I was working in an out-building, a kind of shack, a tumble-down, broken-down mess of a place, and I had a green table. I just thought, "Well, is there a way to bring my life into the fiction I'm writing, will it make a difference?" And the fact is, it doesn't make any difference. It was a kind of experiment which couldn't fail.” ThinkingWayWritingWellsKindTwoFactsHouseDifferencesFictionFailingWrittenNew YorkExampleBuildingBrokenSummerTablesGreenWinterExperimentsMessMaking A DifferenceJournalBroken DownVermontShackLeviathan Author:Paul Auster
“Money is the driving force of Hand to Mouth, the lack of money, and all those true stories about strange things in The Red Notebook, coincidences and unlikely events, surprise, the unexpected.” StoriesHandsForceEventsStrangeMouthsRedSurpriseDrivingUnexpectedCoincidenceUnlikelyNotebookStrange ThingsTrue StoryDriving Force Author:Paul Auster