Caroline Leavitt Quotes
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I had always known that I was Jewish - we celebrated the holidays, we went to a synagogue - but I had never known that I was supposed to feel ashamed about it.
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Indie bookstores love writers as much as they love readers, and there is something about a community store, where you walk in, you feel known, and the delight in books is just infectious.
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Writing is really hard, and it's really a skill.
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While some of the big publishers might give out 200,000 advances, if your book does not hit some of the lists in the second week, they stop paying attention to you.
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Literature can allow us to experience the best side of humankind, where instead of giving up, we struggle desperately in the ruins for love, connection and hope.
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I absolutely want and prize and love and revere every single media review I get, but if I got 50 reviews from major newspapers and one review from Amazon, I still would feel a little weird: 'What's going on? Why aren't people responding?'
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People love stories. They need stories.
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When self-publishing started, it was mostly people who really couldn't write. And they just wanted to get their book out, and they couldn't get traditional deals.
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A title means marketing. It means that company's coming soon, and you'd better get out the Christmas lights so they don't miss your house.
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I always write about the things that haunt me, the questions I have.
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I call Algonquin Books 'the gods and goddesses of publishing.' Not only did they give me a career, they care deeply about every writer in their flock.
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I was a bookworm who aced every test - until third grade, when my teacher handed out a pop quiz about Jesus and the Apostles.
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All writers know how important a good title is. It's the first thing readers see, along with a knock-your-socks-off cover - a seductive 'come hither' for the story within.
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My first husband was a serial cheater.
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I cried to my mother that I wanted to go to Hebrew school; I wanted Jewish friends. But when my mother took me, the kids there all knew each other, and somehow I was even more of an outcast.
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Is there nothing the prodigiously talented Ann Patchett can't do? She's channeled the world of opera, Boston politics, magic, unwed motherhood, and race relations, creating scenarios so indelible, you swear they are right outside your door.
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Oh, I've had terrible, terrible relationships! The fact that I ever got happily married to a great, normal man is kind of a miracle.
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I am an indifferent cook, but I can make pie.
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Open adoption, when it works, is fabulous. But when it goes wrong, it's so traumatizing for everybody.
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My dirty little secret is I don't drive at all, though I have my license and I renew it every five years. I'm phobic. I keep worrying if I drive, I'll end up killing someone. I hoped that by writing about a car crash, I might understand and heal this phobia, but I didn't! I'm still phobic.
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A product name has to be specific. You know that Tasty Soup is tasty - that Hot Chips will burn off the roof of your mouth.
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L.A. is a place people come to for all sorts of reasons, often to reinvent themselves, and that fascinates me.
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I had a nervous breakdown at 17 when my first love left me, and he was a typical bad boy, albeit a charismatic one, with a string of broken hearts trailing behind him.
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The dead can't change, but you can.