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Quote by Steve Erickson

“For better or worse I'm the writer I am today because of hearing those Dylan records. For better and most certainly not for worse, I'm the person I am today because of hearing Charles.”

Quote by Steve Erickson

Author

Steve Erickson is an American novelist born on April 20, 1950. His works are known for their unique narrative style and profound insights into American society and culture. more

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“Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words 'for ever.' But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don't like doing it.”

“Being a man of taste and sophistication, the 80s were objectively, quantifiably, empirically, diagram-it-on-a-blackboard the worst decade in the history of recorded music.”

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“Western music is arguably America's greatest contribution to the 20th century, cultural or otherwise.”

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“With a few exceptions like Kraftwerk, most great 20th century Western music is in some way American-based. And the great paradox of America, the paradox that distills America, is that this greatest of American contributions to humanity, this American contribution that probably has influenced more people around the world for the good, that probably has brought more people around the world unqualified joy, was born of America's greatest evil, slavery. Or one of the two great evils anyway, counting the European extinction of those who were on the continent first.”

“The form is always integral to the expression of the theme or to the sheer telling of the story, and sometimes the right form is apparent to me from the outset and sometimes it isn't.”

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“One of the reasons I'm not so keen on people calling me an "experimental" writer is that it suggests the work is about the experiment, when it's always the opposite - any "experimentation" is dictated by the material.”

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“In essence I'm really a very traditional writer. I subscribe to the notion that, ultimately, characters do drive everything else.”

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“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.”

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“There are millions of white Americans today who still can barely bring themselves to acknowledge that the Civil War, with its twin Americas locked in a death match, was about slavery. They'll argue it was about economics, and they're right only because one of those economies was a slave economy. They'll argue it was about culture, and they're right only because one of those cultures was a slave culture.”

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“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.”

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