American - Writer | November 20, 1945 -
For someone whose goal in life was to stay unemployed, I can't imagine what I thought was going to happen. I was so terrified of everything, I just thought I'd curl up in the gutter and die, and by a complete mistake, my life turned out to be absolutely wonderful.
Deborah Eisenberg
LifeMistakeThoughtMy LifeDieUp
I suppose I'm always looking for a sort of acuity of perception either in my characters or about my characters.
PerceptionLookingAlwaysEither
The world belongs to no one. There are very few people who fit into the world. And part of the struggle of every human life is to somehow claim a place on the planet, but it's at the forefront of the experience of the wandering race. The wandering people.
LifeExperienceStrugglePeopleRace
The first story I wrote was called 'Days,' and I have very little affection for it.
StoryAffectionFirstDaysLittle
Writing does change you, and of course it feels good to do things, so you could say writing is de facto therapeutic. But really, one writes to write.
ChangeGoodWritingYouSayWrite
I find it endlessly interesting, endlessly funny, the fact that we're rather arbitrarily divided up into these discrete humans and that your physical self, your physical attributes, your moment of history and the place where you were born determine who you are as much as all that indefinable stuff that's inside of you.
FunnyHistoryMomentSelfYouBorn
I'm a bit of an expert on anger, having suffered from it all through my youth, when I was both brunt and font. It's certainly the most miserable state to be in but it's also tremendously gratifying, really - rage feels justified.
AngerYouthMiserableExpertRage
It's almost uncanny to receive a prize named in honor of Bernard Malamud. I must have been in my early teens when 'The Magic Barrel' was published and I first read it.
HonorMagicEarlyFirstPrizeBeen
It's much easier to read the stories that have a lot of dialogue; of course, they flow much more easily into speech.
SpeechFlowMoreDialogueEasier
I find I often just fall into a stone-like sleep, right in the middle of the day, just sort of clonk. I can't work for extended periods when I'm beginning something. But if I'm at the end of something, I can work on for hours and hours and hours.
WorkDayBeginningSleepEndFall
I've never really thought of writing books. I've never thought about stories as a part of a collection.
WritingThoughtNeverBooksStories
I actually came to New York because it was very tolerant. You know, it seems preposterous, ludicrous thing to say in an interview, but I came for the anonymity particularly.
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