Deb Olin Unferth famous quotes

Humans, we just hop out of things, off things. We splatter ourselves in inappropriate places. Because we have nothing to live for. Because we want to destroy what we can. Because we want to be something we can’t. Because we don’t really believe we can die.
-- Deb Olin Unferth

#Believe #Want #Inappropriate

It takes bravery to care for someone — no matter who he is or what made him, whether he is weak or walking or jumping out of windows. The risk involved is enormous.
-- Deb Olin Unferth

#Jumping #Bravery #Risk

You know how it is to want something. Desire builds like a little house in your head and it sits there, half-constructed in your mind. Women who want children are this way. Artists are this way about pictures. It doesn't go away. You may forget for a few months but then it's back, the unfinished pieces of what you want.
-- Deb Olin Unferth

#Children #Artist #House

I decided I like that mode. It's how I think - it's my voice. I like being funny and sad at the same time, or funny and disturbing at the same time. It's my natural voice.
-- Deb Olin Unferth

#Thinking #Natural

I want to be funny. When I first started writing, I didn't find my stories funny, but people kept saying they were. It kind of worried me; these are some pretty disturbing and sad pieces. Why do people think they're funny?
-- Deb Olin Unferth

#Writing #Thinking #People

Howard's enchanting Hospice obeys its own magical inner logic with excellent prose and a sadness that will split open hearts. You have in your hands a story that is inquisitive, gripping, and triumphant.
-- Deb Olin Unferth

#Sadness #Heart #Hands

Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.

I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, "What happened next?

We like to see death as an unfair conspiracy, and what we want is a magic practitioner, a combination of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Its all gone pretty fast. I dont want to move on, but I know I have to.

You have to love what you do to want to do it everyday.

Keep working hard and you can get anything that you want.

I love inappropriate humour. What else are you going to do? You have to laugh.

Humans, we just hop out of things, off things. We splatter ourselves in inappropriate places. Because we have nothing to live for. Because we want to destroy what we can. Because we want to be something we can’t. Because we don’t really believe we can die.

When you're up for an Oscar, you just get offered everything. It's fantastic, but a lot of it you're completely inappropriate for.

I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.