Top 20 Quotes & Sayings by Tom Barbash

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Tom Barbash.

Last updated on September 19, 2024.

Tom Barbash is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction, as well as an educator and critic. He is the author of the novel The Last Good Chance, a collection of short stories Stay Up With Me, and the bestselling nonfiction work On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick & 9/11: A Story of Loss & Renewal. His fiction has been published in Tin House, Story magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review and The Indiana Review. His criticism has appeared in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

American - Writer

Source: Wikipedia

I think narrators expect a high level of intimacy with their readers, and vice versa.

Tom Barbash

I'm suspicious of epiphanies, because they so rarely last.

Tom Barbash

I think it's probably better to make a region your own, and then maybe you can go somewhere else, but a lot of great writers have stuck to one region.

Tom Barbash

When you teach, it's sometimes necessary to consciously not write for a month or two - and then pick a time in the future to sink back in. It makes you less frustrated and more in control. I do best when I give myself breaks and come back hungry.

Tom Barbash

I think the second, or outsider's, perspective can come as you layer a story. It's as though you've grabbed a secondary character and asked them, "What do you make of this guy?" and the hope is that the answer surprises you as the writer.

Tom Barbash

I think the voice can carry a story.

Tom Barbash

One good thing the teaching has given me is the ability to read and revise my own work.

Tom Barbash

I went back into the older stories and reworked them, because I became a better writer over the years and could spot flaws. I loved having another chance to make them stronger, and to bring them closer to me, made them less like a greatest hits compilation, and more like something written in the same extended burst.

Tom Barbash

Being a reporter took me out of myself and that shaped me as a writer.

Tom Barbash

I think one's person's unlikeable is another's lovable.

Tom Barbash

I had written about a small hamlet upstate, and had been called into a meeting about my story, which, as it turned out, had upset a lot of people.

Tom Barbash

My characters tend, if wounded, to be emotionally resourceful. Often they're in that way station between when loss happens and when it can be fully comprehended. In the meantime they're fighting to get something back, and occasionally they prevail in surprising ways.

Tom Barbash

I think writers tend to hear a different message from the ones our friends and acquaintances intend. We see what's revealed, which makes us dangerous.

Tom Barbash

When I teach, I try to assign writers from whom I can learn.

Tom Barbash

Susan Rebecca White has a keen sense for how her characters talk and think. An impressive debut.

Tom Barbash

I tend to listen to my friends and family empathetically, and I try to help work through their problems from the inside. I try to adopt their thinking.

Tom Barbash

I'll write about California someday, I imagine, but I don't know when.

Tom Barbash