A Quote by Kevin Barry

I have always felt a special affinity with V. S. Pritchett. He worked from the ear, primarily, as I do, and he was an all-rounder, writing short stories, novels, memoir, travelogue, critical biography. He lived to be almost 100, and he never stopped, and his work is unified by a great generosity of spirit.

Kevin Barry

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Affinity Almost Always Biography Critical Ear Felt Generosity Generosity Of Spirit Great His Lived Memoir Never Never Stop Novels Primarily Short Short Stories Special Spirit Stopped Stories Unified Work Worked Writing Writing Short Writing Short Stories

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Kevin Barry
Irish - Author
Born: 1969

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

Larry Niven

Writing short stories was kind of like I was cheating the whole time, in some way. I went back and forth between writing the novels and sort of sneaking out to work on stories occasionally. These stories were written over the last 10 years or so, as I was taking breaks from the novels I've written.

Dan Chaon

I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.

Catherine Ryan Hyde

I've been thinking a lot about why it was so important to me to do The Idiot as a novel, and not a memoir. One reason is the great love of novels that I keep droning on about. I've always loved reading novels. I've wanted to write novels since I was little. I started my first novel when I was seven.I don't have the same connection to memoir or nonfiction or essays. Writing nonfiction makes me feel a little bit as if I'm producing a product I don't consume - it's a really alienating feeling.

Elif Batuman

All my writing-life people kept telling me that I should stop writing short stories and start writing novels: my agent, my Israeli publisher, my foreign ones, my bank manager - they all felt and keep feeling that I'm doing something wrong here.

Etgar Keret

I'm one of those writers who started off writing novels and came to writing short stories later, partly because I didn't have the right ideas, partly because I think that short stories are more difficult. I think learning to write short stories also made me attracted toward a paring down of the novel form.

Julian Barnes

I started writing because I wanted to write scripts, but I wasn't very good at it. Then I started writing short stories, sort of as treatments for the film scripts, and I found I enjoyed writing short stories far more than I enjoyed writing film scripts. Then the short stories got longer and longer and suddenly, I had novels.

Jasper Fforde

A lot of my songs are very personal, always, but this one felt like a memoir. I almost called it Hallucinated Memoir. "Granny" is a hallucinated memoir. It's straight-up symbolism for my life, in many ways.

Vic Chesnutt

Though The Kite Runner was my first completed novel, I had been writing on and off for most of my life, primarily short stories, and primarily for myself.

Khaled Hosseini

Good writing, in my opinion, is writing that looks really easy, so easy that a person who has never written more than a grocery list might convince themself that they could also write a book. That being said, it's always a lot of work, as you know. And then there's this: you have no idea how many failed stories and novels I've attempted. I have files full of stories that didn't work for whatever reason.

Mary J. Miller

I started writing the book without realizing I was writing a book. That sounds stupid, but it's true. I'd been trying and failing to make a different manuscript work, and I thought I was just taking a break by writing some short stories. I'm not a very good short story writer - the amazing compression that is required for short stories doesn't come easily to me. But anyway, I thought I'd try to write some short stories. And a structure took shape - I stumbled upon it.

Ayana Mathis

Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.

William Zinsser

It took me a long time to know enough about writing to really write short stories. You can't just immerse yourself, as you do in a novel, and see where everything goes. Novels are a very flexible, accommodating form. Short stories aren't.

Thomas McGuane

It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.

Tim Pratt

I always thought that Bill Murray was one of the great actors that I've worked with. And I've worked with all kinds of people who are known primarily for their dramatic work.

Ivan Reitman

When the new country came out ten to 15 years ago, people my age were almost too old. But it never stopped me. I never stopped writing. I never stopped recording.

Dolly Parton

A Quote by Kevin Barry

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