American - Author | 1966 -
You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and I'm speaking of life, not writing - is 'no humor too black.'
Elizabeth McCracken
LifeMottoHumorWritingWorldYou
Humor reminds you, when you're flattened by sorrow, that you're still human.
HumorYouHumanSorrowStill
It's hard to know which made me more aware of the impossibility of protecting children - having a child die or having had two live.
LiveChildrenChildMeDieKnow
Ordinarily, I'd claim that I'd never write directly about my children, but the opening conversation of 'Peter Elroy' is a verbatim conversation that my children had that I just loved: morbid, funny, passionate, and obsessed with the truth of things - all natural qualities of children that I'd like my work to contain.
WorkFunnyTruthChildrenLoved
You believe in God or statistics or the way your narrative differs from other people.
GodPeopleBelieveYouStatistics
Sadness was something I was thinking about in my life outside of writing, so it wormed itself into whatever I wrote.
LifeWritingSadnessThinkingAbout
I have a memory of my fourth-grade self wanting to be the first woman president of the United States, but I think that has a lot more to do with my love of world records and reference books than a love of serving my country.
LoveWomanMemoryWorldThinkSelf
I've always been absolutely appalling about the future, but I sort of think that was my childhood religion. We were future deniers. You did your best in the present, which was all around you.
FutureBestChildhoodReligionThink
I feel like I don't understand time in novels, really. I bumble forward, is all.
TimeForwardFeelUnderstandLike
When I tell people there are three stories in 'Thunderstruck' that were from the same wrecked novel, they want to guess what they are. Nobody has. There are no characters or timelines in common. They're structured very differently. A good novel wouldn't have pulled apart so easily.
GoodPeopleNobodyThreeWantTell
I can't imagine not joking even at the worst of times. And for me, it's sort of automatic.
MeWorstImagineEvenJokingSort
There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.
FearHumorAmazingMeTexasYoung
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