Dan Chaon Quotes

Quotes about:

• There is your car and the open road, the fabled lure of random adventure. You stand at the verge, and you could become anything.

  Dan Chaon

  Adventure, Car, Lure

  45 Copy quote

• If no one knows you, then you are no one.

  Dan Chaon

  Knows, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• The happiest I have ever been is in the life that I led with my wife and kids.

  Dan Chaon

  Kids, Wife, My Wife

  15 Copy quote

• A lot of time, with stories, I'll start out with a title and try to dream myself into the story that it evokes - a kind of subconscious exercise in which I'm trawling for some kind of entryway into fiction.

  Dan Chaon

  Dream, Exercise, Trying

  Believer Interview, www.believermag.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Writing a short story is a little like walking into a dark room, finding a light and turning it on. The light is the end of the story.

  Dan Chaon

  Writing, Dark, Light

  "An Interview With Ficton Writer Dan Chaon". Interview with Sara Peyton, www.pw.org. July 19, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep.

  Dan Chaon

  Mistake, Sleep, Eye

  4 Copy quote

• You can go on like this for a very long time, and no one will notice. You keep thinking you're going to hit some sort of bottom, but I'm here to tell you: There is no bottom.

  Dan Chaon

  Thinking, Long, Goes On

  Dan Chaon (2009). “Among the Missing”, p.16, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

• You can't count on notoriety lasting very long, and there's no way to predict whether anyone will care about your books or you in three years, let alone ten or twenty.

  Dan Chaon

  Book, Years, Long

  Interview with Tom Barbash, www.believermag.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the future.

  Dan Chaon

  Moving, Moving Forward, Alive

  "Stay Awake". Book by Dan Chaon, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• Maybe love, like suffering, is relative.

  Dan Chaon

  Suffering, Maybe Love, Relative

  Dan Chaon (2009). “Among the Missing”, p.89, Ballantine Books

  7 Copy quote

• Identity issues are hardwired into the way I think about character - it's almost as if I can't get away from them even if I want to.

  Dan Chaon

  Character, Thinking, Issues

  Interview with Molly Antopol, therumpus.net. September 15th, 2009.

  7 Copy quote

• Maybe it's because I grew up during the MTV generation, but to me a perfect song is one I can imagine a music video to, a song that can take you into a dream.

  Dan Chaon

  Dream, Song, Mtv

  Interview with Molly Antopol, therumpus.net. September 15th, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• I've never been able to sleep very much, even when I was a kid. I used to hate being forced to lay in bed in the darkness, and just shifting in bed and staring at the shadows.

  Dan Chaon

  Hate, Sleep, Kids

  Interview with Tom Barbash, www.believermag.com.

  6 Copy quote

• I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

  Dan Chaon

  Stories, Mystery, Short Story

  "Staying Awake with Dan Chaon". Interview with Clare Stein, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 6, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• Imaginative empathy is one of the great gifts that humans have, and it means that we can live more than one life. We can picture what it would be like from another perspective.

  Dan Chaon

  Mean, Perspective, Empathy

  Interview with Jennifer Haupt, www.psychologytoday.com. February 15, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• In some ways all of my fiction is like a conversation I'm having with the writers I read when I was first falling in love with books.

  Dan Chaon

  Falling In Love, Book, Fiction

  Interview with Molly Antopol, therumpus.net. September 15th, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.

  Dan Chaon

  Stories, World, Kind

  "Staying Awake with Dan Chaon". Interview with Clare Stein, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 6, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once - I've been working on three different novels. When I get stuck on one, I hop back and forth.

  Dan Chaon

  Different, Three, Hops

  4 Copy quote

• Fiction is fun because you get to steal an identity and try to make it authentic.

  Dan Chaon

  Fun, Trying, Identity

  4 Copy quote

• I know a lot of people don't listen to music when they're writing because it distracts them, but for me it's almost a way to get into the self-hypnotic state that I need to be in to write.

  Dan Chaon

  Writing, Self, People

  Interview with Molly Antopol, therumpus.net. September 15th, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• It is not like a premonition of death. It is as if she died a long time ago, and she just now remembered it.

  Dan Chaon

  Long, Premonition, Remembered

  4 Copy quote

• In the end, there probably isn't much difference between being in love and acting like you're in love.

  Dan Chaon

  Being In Love, Differences, Acting

  Dan Chaon (2009). “Among the Missing”, p.82, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

• At a certain point, you must be able to slip loose. At a certain point, you found that you had been set free. You could be anyone, he thought. You could be anyone.

  Dan Chaon

  Able, Found, Certain

  Dan Chaon (2009). “Await Your Reply: A Novel”, p.297, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

• So this was what it felt like to lose yourself. Again. To let go of your future and let it rise up and up until finally you couldn't see it anymore, and you knew that you had to start over.

  Dan Chaon

  Life, Letting Go, Starting Over

  4 Copy quote

• I never wanted to get to a point in my life where I knew what was going to happen next. I felt like most people just couldn't wait until they found themselves settled down into a routine and they didn't have to think about the next day, or the next year, or the next decade because it was all planned out for them. I can't understand how people can settle for having just one life.

  Dan Chaon

  Thinking, Years, Next Day

  4 Copy quote

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