A Quote by Paul Auster

I project myself so deeply into the characters in novels that I'm not thinking about my own life. — © Paul Auster
I project myself so deeply into the characters in novels that I'm not thinking about my own life.
In Pakistan, many of the young people read novels because in the novels, not just my novels but the novels of many other Pakistani writers, they encounter ideas, notions, ways of thinking about the world, thinking about their society that are different. And fiction functions in a countercultural way as it does in America and certainly as it did in the, you know, '60s.
When I was really sad, I would be like a little kid wiggling a loose tooth or touching a sore spot - there were things that I did to make myself sadder. It was almost as if I were luxuriant in my own melancholy. Looking at the diaries and thinking about my old self, thinking about my lost youth - that was part of that project of making myself totally miserable.
To be honest, I'm not even thinking about America. If I was to start thinking about the enormity of 'Downton' and the size of the project, then I wouldn't be able to be very truthful to the work. I would start to watch myself too much. I'm not even thinking about it. Who knows what will happen.
One day, I discovered that a couple of people had written 'fanfic' - stories of their own based on my characters. Just the thought of people thinking that hard and deeply about something I've written is incredible.
The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own "I" ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. This novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become.
For many characters, the prospect of having a child in their life brings up a lot of issues about their own parents. And who doesn't love that? Bad mommy or daddy issues are a delicious staple in romance novels.
I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.
I try to just be open to what the next experience is and how it makes me feel, just reading a project, or trying to get involved with a project, or thinking about a project, and what particular emotional flavor that brings. To me, it's never really about planning the next thing, or the career arc. It's about investigating how I feel, from project to project, and finding things that I haven't explored and what that would be like.
I really do believe that people surprise you. And one of the powerful things about novels is that they're about characters, and those characters live their lives.
I love thinking about the film, the project and committing myself as much as possible.
Respect your characters, even the ­minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.
I've had three of my own children and spent my professional life thinking about children. And yet I still find my relation to my children deeply puzzling.
I keep thinking I'll enjoy suspense novels, and sometimes I do. I've read about 20 Dick Francis novels.
One never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one can not remember what toothpaste they use; what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed.
There are twenty-four characters in this book named Max. Let there be an end to this silly business of authors never giving their own names to characters in their novels. False modesty, faugh!
I deeply respect literature and expect to gain insight from a book and to identify emotionally with its characters. I therefore avoid reading suspense novels or science fiction.
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