Stewart O'Nan Quotes

• All stories teach us something, and promise us something, whether they're true or invented, legend or fact.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Promise, Stories, Legends

  Stewart O'Nan (2008). “The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy”, p.363, Anchor

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• You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the world, or the person you loved.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Love, Life, Acceptance

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• Getting inside your character's head and letting the reader see the world through not just their eyes but their sensibility creates an intimacy that can't be duplicated in any other medium.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Character, Eye, World

  "Go Forth (Vol. 16)". Interview with Brandon Hobson, logger.believermag.com. October 4, 2013.

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• The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Writing, Two, Stopping

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• I don't like coming home. It keeps me from being nostalgic, which by nature I am. Even before the plane begins its descent, I find myself dreading the questions left unanswered by my childhood.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Home, Childhood, Nostalgic

  Stewart O'Nan (2003). “Snow Angels: A Novel”, p.15, Macmillan

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• Saul Bellow once said, 'A writer is a reader who has moved to emulation' — which I think is true. I just started writing and made that jump from reader to writer and learned how hard it was, but also how much fun it was — losing myself in these imaginary worlds.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Fun, Writing, Thinking

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• The sins of the Midwest: flatness, emptiness, a necessary acceptance of the familiar. Where is the romance in being buried alive? In growing old?

  Stewart O'Nan

  Acceptance, Romance, Midwest

  Stewart O'Nan (2008). “Songs for the Missing: A Novel”, p.12, Penguin

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• The happiest she'd ever been was with him, and the saddest. Was that the true test of love?

  Stewart O'Nan

  Love, Tests, Tests Of Love

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• It is not brilliance or facility that is necessary, but the determination to bear and even enjoy the dull process of wading into one's own bad prose again, and one more time, and then once again, with the utmost concentration and taste, looking for opportunities to mine deeper.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Determination, Opportunity, Dull

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• When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world. When I'm not at my desk, the rest of the time, I try to stay in that character and see the world the way that character would It's almost like method acting in a way — keeping the character close the way the actor keeps a script close and always tries to be in character.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Writing, Character, Trying

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• To be lost and forgotten-to be abandoned-is a shared and terrible fear, just as our fondest hope, as we grow older, is that we might leave some parts of us behind in the hearts of those we love and in that way live on.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Heart, Might, Way

  Stewart O'Nan (2008). “The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy”, p.363, Anchor

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• The spirit of Jane Eyre looms over Once Upon a Day. Lisa Tucker keeps the plot of this gothic novel bubbling with tons of juicy family secrets.

  Stewart O'Nan

  Secret, Plot, Juicy

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