Leslie Pietrzyk quotes
-
“In my case, I made the decision early on that I was going to be very open about the book and claim upfront that each of the stories was based on my life experience. I think my reasoning goes back to what I was saying earlier, about wanting the book to be "more than a book," that I wanted the reader to feel a little unsettled about what they were reading: there's a core of factual truth here.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk -
“I dislike that premise implies that a fiction writer is incapable of dreaming up stories that can bring readers to tears, that if you are lucky enough to be living a pretty sedate life ,as I am, you've got nothing worthy of writing about, that you're incapable of making a reader's gut wrench.Frankly, that's what makes readers nervous, the sorcery of you or me or any good fiction writer making up characters who feel like real people, of telling a story that feels true but isn't.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk -
“Maybe that's the foundation of my book: how do we come to terms with the death of someone we love when it is impossible to come to terms with such a profound loss? The path I found where I could even ask that question, or maybe advance it beyond what I'd attempted in A Year and a Day, was by straddling the line: this is fiction and memoir, it is true and it isn't.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk -
“My only obligation as a fiction writer is to the story, to make it good, so good the busy reader doesn't feel that flipping those pages was a waste of time. And I still believe that.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk -
-
“As writers and readers, we're drawn to conflict. It's that ancient theory of plot that's written on the whiteboard during every fiction workshop, characters who want something overcoming obstacles as a way to create narrative momentum and suspense. So there's that, that trauma gives us more plot.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk -
“Writing is my way of trying to understand vast things that probably I'll never truly understand, a way of exploring a Big Question, of wrestling meaning from the chaos of life. Consequently, when I choose to write overtly or even secretly about my real life, it's always something difficult and complicated that I'm longing to make sense of.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk -
“Think about the stories you have inside that scare you. That's what you should be writing. I and others call that writing from the dark place. Our humiliations and secret fears and deepest anxieties, those times where we were at our worst: that's the best material.”
-- Leslie Pietrzyk
-
“As life tends to become more and more distracting, let us firmly hold on to books.”
-
Source : Aaron Copland (2011). “What to Listen For in Music”, p.23, Penguin
-
“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”
-
“Some of my academic friends think Ive fallen from a very special grace.”