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Ben Dolnick Quotes


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Quotes by Ben Dolnick

Showing 1-10 of 39 Quotes by Ben Dolnick

Books like Munro's are so deeply personal and idiosyncratic that it feels like a violation to subject them to the crude business of committee meetings and PR releases; you might as well storm a butterfly den with a klieg light.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Books Business Butterfly Committee Crude Deeply Den Feels Light Like Meetings Might Personal Release Storm Subject Them Violation Well You

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True atonement isn't the periodic shaving of karmic stubble via confessional; it requires deep, truthful change. It means doing the hardest thing of all: not making the same stupid mistake again.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Again Atonement Change Deep Doing Hardest Hardest Thing Making Means Mistake Periodic Requires Same Shaving Stupid The Hardest Thing Thing True Truthful Via

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A short-story collection is harder to formulate pithy sentences about.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: About Collection Formulate Harder Sentences

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In life, we like tranquility; in books, we love tension.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Books Life Like Love Tension Tranquility

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A novel is no mere assemblage of gears; it is a wild and living being. And how are you to discern the intentions of a creature - to discover its true nature - other than by close and respectful observation?

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Being Close Creature Discern Discover Gears How Intentions Living Mere Nature Novel Observation Other Respectful Than True True Nature Wild You

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Enrichment happened to be my favorite time of day in the Children's Zoo, since it offered relief from the security-guard-esque standing around that makes up most of a zookeeper's day.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Around Children Day Enrichment Favorite Happened Makes Most Offered Relief Since Standing Time Up Zoo

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We humans, just like the animals in our zoos, were born into bodies whose workings are both mechanistically predictable and unfathomably complex. Put in lots of sugar, and we'll get fat and sick. Confine our movement, and we'll get weak and antsy. Give us some manageable problems with which to grapple, and we'll cheer up.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Animals Bodies Born Both Cheer Complex Confine Fat Get Give Humans Just Like Lots Manageable Movement Our Predictable Problems Put Sick Some Sugar Up Us Weak Were Which Whose Workings Zoo

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Literary interviews are inevitably packed with the nuts and bolts of how writers do their work, and there's very little that aspiring writers do more readily than fling other people's nuts and bolts into their toolboxes.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Aspiring Fling How Inevitably Interviews Literary Little More Nuts Other Packed People Readily Than Very Work Writers

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Of course I knew that writing was terrifically hard work and that there was no secret code, as in a video game, that would unlock Tolstoy-mode, enabling me to crank out canon-worthy novellas before lunch.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Before Code Course Crank Enabling Game Hard Hard Work Knew Lunch Me No Secret Out Secret Unlock Video Video Game Work Would Writing

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I've sold all but one of my microphones, put away my mini-notebooks, stopped scouring the Internet for scraps of wisdom.

~Ben Dolnick

Topics: Away Internet Put Scraps Sold Stopped Wisdom

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Writer

Born: Unknown

Links

Find Ben Dolnick on Amazon

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