American - Novelist | May 16, 1961 -
Like many people, I have a fascination with lies and the people who tell them. I wouldn't say I've never told a lie, but I don't think I've ever told one without both assuming I would be found out and feeling absolutely rotten about it.
Jean Hanff Korelitz
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As a writer, I have this compulsion to take characters who appear formidable and bombard them with adversity until they crumble. What's interesting is watching them rise again, and seeing how they've changed and grown, if indeed they have.
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Pacing is not the sort of thing you can plan out beforehand, but you're always aware of it as you write, because you need to make constant decisions.
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I'm not in a position to tell anyone anything about how to live his or her life, but I think it's worth noting that no one can lie to us as effectively as we can lie to ourselves. We know exactly what to say! And I do think that women, even extremely smart women, can be very, very vulnerable to men.
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I started thinking about what I've always been interested in: how people can't see things that are right in front of them. All you have to do is read the papers to see endless examples of smart people who can't see the nose on their faces.
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People need a narrative, and if there isn't one on offer, they make one up.
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Serious writers pretend they don't care about film adaptations of their work, but it's a colossal lie: We all care.
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My first three novels were all the subjects of intensely exciting flurries of calls from producers and even stars' production companies, and once someone actually hired a screenwriter to adapt one of my books - but it all came to nothing, so I tried not to get too excited when a Hollywood suitor came calling for 'Admission,' my fourth novel.
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The first time I went to Helene Hanff's apartment at 305 East 72nd Street, it was 1977, and I was a 16-year-old girl who wanted to be a writer.
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I made it to London aged six, an event I recorded in my diary with coloured markers to convey my sense of occasion. And in 1983, after graduating from college, I returned to spend two years at Cambridge University.
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You'd have to go all the way back to 1972 to find a version of me who didn't care about theater, who didn't read Playbill and watch the Tony Awards, or get why Bob Fosse's choreography was so groundbreaking that all you need to say is 'Fosse hands' and theater people know what you mean.
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I was 11 years old and horse-obsessed. New York City was an unfortunate place for a girl like me to be growing up.
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