Jami Attenberg Quotes
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For years I drove cross-country, back and forth a dozen times, sometimes on book tour, sometimes just to get lost and found.
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There's something to be said for an author who clearly respects a reader.
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When we are young - or even 32 - we often say 'yes' to everything because we're worried that we won't know what we'll like if we don't try it.
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I have watched Occupy Wall Street mostly from the sidelines.
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I do not mourn the death of the printed letter in a snobby, East Coast, patrician way - 'Where have our manners gone?' - but because I love objects, I love paper, and I love something that I can hold to my chest for a moment. Still, I bear no grudge against the e-mail form itself.
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In 'The Odyssey,' every feast is extremely ritualized; high-status individuals even get a better cut of meat.
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I find that short stories are almost like palate cleansers or brain cleansers.
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What I try very hard to do is have an hour or so in the morning when I leave the house and don't have my phone with me. I'll go sit in a cafe and read and handwrite in my notebook and not be facing a screen. My head will be clear. I will be able to hear myself think. Because honestly for the rest of the day it's just screens, screens, screens.
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It should be said upfront that I totally dig people who work in bookstores and libraries. They love books, and I love books, and that is all I really need to know. If they are friendly to me, then we are clearly soul mates.
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I'm a really selfish person. But I would do anything for my friends.
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In the past, I was sometimes put in this women's lit category, and I was never really sure that was the appropriate place for me - although I certainly recognize it can be helpful and correct for other people.
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I have very distinct memories about growing up as part of what was then a very small Jewish community in Buffalo Grove, IL.
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I don't think there's any topic a writer should feel afraid of tackling just because it has already been discussed. If you feel you have a fresh perspective and an understanding of a certain emotional truth, it's always worth writing.
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I always tell people this when they're looking for an agent - they should love your work. You are entitled to work with someone who believes in you. Why do business with someone who is ambivalent about you and your art?
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My grandmother died when my mother was just 11 years old, and consequently, my mother never learned how to cook particularly well.
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I did get in a few fights in school. Kids threw around anti-Semitic slurs, not knowing necessarily what they meant. It was probably just something they picked up somewhere, as kids do.
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No matter how many feminist tracts you read, you never forget what boys like.
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No matter how much money I made from writing, I'd keep the bookstore job.
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Your family is unavoidable. You cannot escape them or trade them in for another family. You also can't change them... but you can change your response to them.
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I can act like a boy as much as I want, but when I wake up in the morning, I'm still a woman.
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You write a book, and after 50 pages you think it's about one thing, and then you write another hundred and you realize it's about something else, and then by the time you're done, you can look back and say, 'Oh, this is what it's about.'
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In 1998, I started a blog, something I could control very easily and update at my own whim.
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I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone's Christmas.
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As creative people, we should be really conscious of being of service in our work, being as generous as we can.