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Authors:

Don DeLillo quotes about work

American Novelist November 20, 1936

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Quotes

Why shouldn't the death of a person you love bring you into lurid ruin? You don't know how to love the one you love until they disappear abruptly. Then you understand how thinly distanced from their suffering, how sparing of self you often were, only rarely unguarded of heart, working your networks of give-and-take. Don DeLillo
She was shining a light on us, she was coming into being, endlessly being formed and reformed as the muscles in her face worked at smiling and speaking, as the electronic dots swarmed. Don DeLillo
When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book's plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body of flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way. A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the... Don DeLillo
When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don’t have an audience; I have a set of standards. But when I think of my work out in the world, written and published, I like to imagine it’s being read by some stranger somewhere who doesn’t have anyone around him to talk to about books and writing—maybe a would-be writer, maybe a little lonely, who depends on a certain kind of writing to make him feel more comfortable in the world. Don DeLillo
He was thinking about automated teller machines. The term was aged and burdened by its own historical memory. It worked at cross-purposes, unable to escape the inferences of fuddled human personnel and jerky moving parts. The term was part of the process that the device was meant to replace. It was anti-futuristic, so cumbrous and mechanical that even the acronym seemed dated. Don DeLillo
But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [... N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get a French translation of one of my books that says 'translated from the American', I think, 'Yes, that's exactly right. Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo quote: "Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep..."
Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work. Don DeLillo
...he lived with the consequences of self discovery and i suspected this was a more exacting hardship than anything the world might have worked out for him... Don DeLillo
I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions? Don DeLillo
It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought. Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo quote: "I think there is a sense of last things in my work that..."
I think there is a sense of last things in my work that probably comes from a Catholic childhood. Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo quote: "I have only a bare working knowledge of the human brain but..."
I have only a bare working knowledge of the human brain but it's enough to make me proud to be an American. Don DeLillo
Everybody knows the thing about an infinite number of monkeys," Fenig said. "An infinite number of monkeys is put to work at an infinite number of typewriters and eventually one of them reproduces a great work of literature. In what language I don't know. But what about an infinite number of writers in an infinite number of cages? Would they make on monkey sound? One genuine chimp noise? Would they eventually swing by their toes from an infinite number of monkey bars? Would they shit monkey... Don DeLillo
He liked to talk about the anatomy of racecars, motorcycles, hunting rifles, how things work, and she liked to listen. It was a mark of the distance between them that she listened so eagerly, the perennial miles, the weeks and months Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo quote: "She became confused when she stepped onto an escalator that..."
She became confused when she stepped onto an escalator that wasn't working. Don DeLillo

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