“Noir is where the clarity of moral divisions break down, the black and whites turn into grays.” Quote by Elliott Colla
“Just as certain Cold War binaries were collapsing, new binaries of Sunni versus Shia or Arab versus Kurd were being created by the new occupation force. It's the corruption of that moment that I am really interested in.” WarMomentsCertainForceColdCorruptionThat MomentOccupationCold WarVersusKurdsShia Author:Elliott Colla
“Academic writing you have to get right. Fiction you have to get plausible. And there's a world of difference.” WorldWritingDifferencesFictionAcademicPlausibleAcademic Writing Author:Elliott Colla
“In translation you have to get it right, you have to be precise in what you're doing. You have to attempt what they did in that language - say, in Arabic - and try to accomplish a version of that in English, and you're constantly serving two masters.” TryingTwoLanguageMastersAccomplishVersionsServingPreciseTranslationsDoing YouTwo Masters Author:Elliott Colla
“When you're writing your own fiction, you don't have to ride two horses.” WritingTwoFictionHorse Author:Elliott Colla
“If I have learned how to write fiction it's by working with great writers and getting them to explain their craft to me so that I can do it in English.” IfsWritingI CanCan DoFictionCraftsI Have LearnedGreat WritersI Can Do It Author:Elliott Colla
“Once you have the first draft it's living, and you can coax it to grow and trim it and reshape it and so on. But get that first draft.” FirstsGrows Author:Elliott Colla
“I think if I'd gone to an MFA program and learned that, it would have been money well spent. But translation has been that for me.” IfsThinkingWellsHas BeensGoneProgramTranslationsMoney Well Spent Author:Elliott Colla
“In trying to imagine this world, I kept coming back to Michel Aflaq. He's a Christian Arab, a Syrian, who ends up finding his home in Iraq and is buried there - I was stunned to see his tomb is right smack down in the Green Zone.” WorldTryingEndsHomeChristianImagineThis WorldFindingsGreenIraqZoneBuriedComing BackTombsSmackStunnedGreen Zone Author:Elliott Colla
“Twyla Tharp put it together from the material I wrote and recorded over my whole career. I thought it was pretty good, but how objective could I be?” WholeTogetherCareersMaterialsObjectives Author:Billy Joel
“The corruption in Iraq has nothing to do with ideas - it has to do with the regime and institutional structures and power.” IdeasStructureIraqCorruptionRegimes Author:Elliott Colla