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Amy Waldman Quotes


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Quotes by Amy Waldman

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I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Article Assumed Been Came Characters Emerge Fiction First Had How Imagination Knew Novel Out Profile Reporter Research Set Skills Story Subject Useless Would Write Years

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History is the history of human behavior, and human behavior is the raw material of fiction. Most people recognize that novelists do research to get the facts right - how a glove factory works, for example, or how courtesans in imperial Japan dressed.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Behavior Dressed Example Factory Facts Fiction For Example Get Glove History How Human Human Behavior Imperial Japan Material Most Novelists People Raw Raw Material Recognize Research Right The History Of Works

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As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't so different.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Adding Away Beneath Characters Deepen Different Enough Facts Find Get Go Layers Novelist Observing Peel Processes Reporter Source Subjects Surface Try You Your

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Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Actions Character Crafting Deal Great Great Deal Head Here Imagination Like Lines Means None Nothing Others Out Own Paradox Perhaps Reading Reporting Sense Some Something Than True Truer Turns Which Writing You Your

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I found 'The Twin' sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. It carried praise from J.M. Coetzee. That seemed ample justification for using it to avoid my own writing. I finished it - weeping - a day later, and I've been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Ample Avoid Been Carried Coffee Colony Day Ever Finished Found Hold Justification Later Me My Own Over Own Powerful Praise Puzzling Seemed Since Sitting Table Twin Using Weeping Writers Writing

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I'm kind of a mash-up of taste - Graham Greene and Jane Austen; W.G. Sebald and Alice Munro.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Alice Austen Graham Jane Jane Austen Kind Taste

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My children, who are almost two: watching them develop has made me pay much closer attention to how we become who we are.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Almost Attention Become Children Closer Develop How Made Me Much Pay Them Two Watching Who

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Fiction just has a lot more room for ambivalence and internal conflict, contradiction, and for me that sums up so much of what people felt after 9/11 - confusion even. And I think that's hard to capture in journalism.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: After Ambivalence Capture Conflict Confusion Contradiction Even Felt Fiction Hard Internal Journalism Just Lot Me More Much People Room Sums Think Up I Think

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In Germany, you have a huge official memorial to the murdered Jews and then you have this artist who's been putting these stumbling blocks, these brass cobblestones, outside the houses Jews were taken away from. It's somewhat controversial and has met some resistance.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Artist Away Been Blocks Brass Controversial Germany Houses Huge Jews Memorial Met Official Outside Putting Resistance Some Somewhat Stumbling Taken Then Were You

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I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels.

~Amy Waldman

Topics: Books Both Children Emperor Felt Joseph Like Liked Lot Me Meant Novel Novels Piece Plot Read Same See Them Way Wrestling

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Author

Born: Unknown

Links

Find Amy Waldman on Amazon

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