David Shields Quotes

• Anything processed by memory is fiction.

  David Shields

  Memories, Fiction

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.57, Vintage

  45 Copy quote

• A book should either allow us to escape existence or teach us how to endure it.

  David Shields

  Book, Should, Existence

  David Shields (2013). “How Literature Saved My Life”, p.197, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Everything I write, I believe instinctively, is to some extent collage. Meaning, ultimately, is a matter of adjacent data.

  David Shields

  Believe, Writing, Data

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.115, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• Our culture is obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any.

  David Shields

  Real, Events, Culture

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.82, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• My medium is prose, not the novel.

  David Shields

  Novel, Mediums, Prose

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.23, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• I don’t know what’s the matter with me, why I’m so adept at distance, why I feel so remote from things, why life feels like a rumor.

  David Shields

  Distance, Rumor, Matter

  David Shields (2013). “How Literature Saved My Life”, p.5, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• Story seems to say that everything happens for a reason and I want to say, No, it doesn’t.

  David Shields

  Everything Happens For A Reason, Stories, Want

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.114, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Thomas Jefferson went through the New Testament and removed all the miracles, leaving only the teachings. Take a source, extract what appeals to you, discard the rest. Such an act of editorship is bound to reflect something of the individual doing the editing: a plaster cast of an aesthetic-not the actual thing, but the imprint of it.

  David Shields

  Teaching, Editing, Miracle

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger: A Manifesto”, p.134, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• With relatively few exceptions, the novel sacrifices too much, for me, on the altar of plot.

  David Shields

  Sacrifice, Plot, Too Much

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.114, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not interested in collage as the refuge of the composition-ally disabled. I'm interested in collage as (to be honest) an evolution beyond narrative.

  David Shields

  Allies, Narrative, Honest

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.115, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Genre is a minimum security prison.

  David Shields

  Genre Is, Prison, Minimum

  Interview with Sean Carman, therumpus.net. March 7, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• The novel is dead. Long live the antinovel, built from scraps.

  David Shields

  Long, Novel, Scrap

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.115, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• You're one of 6.5 billion people now on the planet, and 99.9 percent of your genes are the same as everyone else's.

  David Shields

  People, Humanity, Genes

  David Shields (2008). “The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead”, p.3, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I've ever wanted.

  David Shields

  Labels, Narrative, Nonfiction

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.124, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Resolution and conclusion are inherent in a plot-driven narrative.

  David Shields

  Plot, Narrative, Resolution

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger: A Manifesto”, p.128, Penguin UK

  5 Copy quote

• I take literature as a really serious human activity. It's not just a playful thing. It can be hilarious and wonderful and performative, but I think it's really serious.

  David Shields

  Thinking, Literature, Serious

  "'I hadn't yet found the form that released my best intelligence.' - Interview with David Shields". Interview with Hayden Bennett, logger.believermag.com. April 18, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

• The beauty of reality-based art - art underwritten by reality hunger - is that it's perfectly situated between life itself and (unattainable) "life as art".

  David Shields

  Art, Reality, Poetry

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.166, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

  David Shields

  Reality, Talking, Nonfiction

  Source: www.gq.com

  7 Copy quote

• Copies have been dethroned; the economic model built on them is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connections, and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer, and engage a work. Art is a conversation, not a patent office. The citation of sources belongs to the realms of journalism and scholarship, not art. Reality can’t be copyrighted.

  David Shields

  Art, Reality, Economic Models

  4 Copy quote

• The absence of plot leaves the reader room to think about other things.

  David Shields

  Thinking, Plot, Rooms

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.114, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• If I'm reading a book and it seems truly interesting, I tend to start reading back to front in order not to be too deeply under the sway of progress.

  David Shields

  Book, Reading, Order

  David Shields (2003). “Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity”, p.13, Univ of Wisconsin Press

  7 Copy quote

• In my own little way, I feel like I'm part of a group of writers who care deeply about pushing the essay forward.

  David Shields

  Care, Littles, Way

  "'I hadn't yet found the form that released my best intelligence.' - Interview with David Shields". Interview with Hayden Bennett, logger.believermag.com. April 18, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

• I'm wonderfully self-lacerating, probably to my character's detriment. I'm terribly open to critique.

  David Shields

  Character, Self, Critique

  Source: www.gq.com

  4 Copy quote

• Momentum, in literary mosaic, derives not from narrative but from the subtle, progressive buildup of thematic resonances.

  David Shields

  Mosaics, Momentum, Narrative

  7 Copy quote

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