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Quote by Charles D'Ambrosio

“Behind each piece, animating every attempt, is the echo of a precarious faith, that we are more intimately bound to one another by our kindred doubts than our brave conclusions.”

Quote by Charles D'Ambrosio

Author

Charles D'Ambrosio

Charles D'Ambrosio is an American short story writer known for his concise and profound writing style. His works often explore themes of human relationships, moral dilemmas, and the essence of human existence. Born in 1958, D'Ambrosio's short stories have gained widespread recognition in the literary world. more

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“We need to be ambivalent - in the essay, and in life too. Ambivalence - having mixed feelings, entertaining contradiction, living with fluctuation - is a widened embrace. It's about the coexistence of things, and in that light, we have no choice in the matter.”

Feelings Choices Embrace Contradiction Essays Coexistence Ambivalence Mixed Feelings

Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“Too much me is annoying under any circumstance, but too much me in an essay, however personal, would mar the art. My "character" in the essay is more like a perspective, an angle of vision, a complicating factor, a questioning presence. I don't sit on the sidelines or pretend to objectivity; and I'm not afraid to stick my neck out or to be revealing and vulnerable.”

Art Character Vision Perspective Circumstances Vulnerable Annoying Not Afraid Questioning Essays

Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“My presence isn't simply about "character" - I'm present in every part and particle of the thing, in the sound and rhythm of the sentences, in the shifting tones and the selection of details, in the comedy, the sadness, and the confusion. For the space of an essay, I'm the air you breathe, everywhere and nowhere. With a personal essay, I don't think you'd want it any other way. You ought to have the sense of an encounter, the impression of having met someone. In my essays, for better or worse, that someone is me.”

Thinking Character Comedy Sadness Breathe Impression Confusion Rhythm Essays

Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“Even with an assignment, I take over, I find a freedom and make the idea my own, and that's where you get the sense that the essays become something very different than the original subject. Assignments are great, though - they test your mettle, your spirit and resilience. All of sudden you drop in, you don't know anything, you're vulnerable and available.”

Different Spirit Resilience Vulnerable Essays

Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“Sometimes I'll have an end in mind, but it's always false, always corny, just a dumb idea anyone could have, sitting on a barstool. An abstract thesis with no real life inside it. And then I start writing and the writing itself confounds me, taking away the comfort of knowing the end in advance. How is that even possible? Doesn't the conclusion come at the end? How can you begin with one - that seems odd, right?”

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Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“I have lots of fiction in the drawer, but the essays I mostly kick out into the world, ready or not. Fiction incubates differently, I suppose.”

Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“The content of the ideal is a desire to return to the perfection of an imaginary past.”

Past Desire Perfection Imaginary

Book:The Waning of the Middle Ages

Source: The Waning of the Middle Ages

“Our nostalgic dreams of perfection thrive just as dangerously in the other direction too, in the imaginary future, that bold and tantalizing future where the troubles of today will be cured by a tomorrow, and all our losses will be recouped, our problems solved, our lives restored, our people made whole again, etc.”

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Author:Charles D'Ambrosio

“What the nostalgic past and the imaginary future seem to share in common is a form of idealism, perhaps a dream of wholeness. Our future is just as goopy with sentiment as our past. To me, they're the same, both very tempting, and I don't believe in either, although the idealism is probably important.”

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“I always say the next book is my favorite, because without a "next" book, you don't really have a career as a book author.”

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Author:Marie Bradby