Ben Dolnick Quotes

'At Freddie's' takes place in 1960s London at the Temple Stage School for child actors. It has a plot that makes you feel sorry for the people who have to write summaries on the backs of books.

~ Ben Dolnick

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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

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

~ Ben Dolnick

About Collection Formulate Harder Sentences

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A social worker named Cosette Rae, along with a therapist named Hilarie Cash, founded 'ReSTART' in what, until then, had been Rae's house.

~ Ben Dolnick

Along Been Cash Founded Had House Named Social Then Therapist Until Worker

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Beginning in middle school, the era of wide-margined, Bible-paged anthologies, short stories develop unpromising associations - and these associations often linger through college, when stories become the things distributed in Xeroxes missing entire pages of line-endings.

~ Ben Dolnick

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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

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During the couple of years it took to write 'At The Bottom of Everything', I decided, on the sort of hopeful whim that occasionally overtakes me, to sign up for piano lessons.

~ Ben Dolnick

Bottom Couple Decided Everything Hopeful Lessons Me Occasionally Piano Piano Lessons Sign Sort Took Up Whim Write Years

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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

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

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For a long time, since story collections look almost precisely like novels, I presumed that they were meant to be enjoyed in the same way as novels.

~ Ben Dolnick

Almost Collections Enjoyed Like Long Long Time Look Meant Meant To Be Novels Precisely Same Since Story Time Way Were

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Herta Muller, Mo Yan, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio - for many of us, the Nobels have become doubly educational: We simultaneously learn of an author's existence and find out that we ought to have been reading him or her all along.

~ Ben Dolnick

Along Author Become Been Doubly Educational Existence Find Her Him Learn Many Ought Out Reading Simultaneously Us

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I know very well that to admit to loving Bright Eyes is to admit to having an overgrown brain region devoted to self-pity, sentimentality, regret, and a handful of other not very appealing emotional states.

~ Ben Dolnick

Admit Appealing Brain Bright Devoted Emotional Eyes Handful Having Know Loving Other Region Regret Self-Pity Sentimentality States Very Well

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I will never, most likely, be good at the piano, but thanks to it, I will never forget the humbling, infuriating, necessary slowness of progress in any artistic endeavor.

~ Ben Dolnick

Any Artistic Endeavor Forget Good Humbling Likely Most Necessary Never Never Forget Piano Progress Thanks Will

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I would love to love Saul Bellow, but by page fifty of 'Herzog', something within me has wandered into another room.

~ Ben Dolnick

Another Fifty Love Me Page Room Saul Something To Love Wandered Within Would

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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

Away Internet Put Scraps Sold Stopped Wisdom

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If you were placing bets on which author would write the tenderest, most moving book about fatherhood, Philip Roth would probably come in at the bottom of the list.

~ Ben Dolnick

About Author Bets Book Bottom Come Fatherhood List Most Moving Philip Placing Were Which Would Write You

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In the Children's Zoo, Enrichment meant presenting the goats with a trash can smeared with peanut butter or dangling keys at the end of a broomstick in front of the cow. The goats would knock their heads around the inside of the can and emerge giddy, peanut butter drunk.

~ Ben Dolnick

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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

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

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Literature is one of those realms in which giving out prizes can seem not merely dubious but positively obtuse.

~ Ben Dolnick

Dubious Giving Literature Merely Out Positively Prizes Seem Those Which

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Oberst is one of those musicians that some people hate in a visceral, biological way.

~ Ben Dolnick

Biological Hate Musicians People Some Some People Those Visceral Way

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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

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