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Tobias Wolff Quotes

American - Writer | June 19, 1945 -

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

Best Poetry Me Believe Story Short

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

Story Short First Everything Order

You have to be kind of clued into them, they are a world of their own, and most people find them disappointing because the best short stories are not constructed like novels.

Be Kind Best People World Short You

Because the more you write the more you're aware of the weight of your tradition and the difficulties of the form and the more you have already done that you do not want to do again.

Tradition You Done Want Difficulties

There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody.

Start Doing Fall Same Almost Again

And you can tell the writers who do it - Robert Stone, for example, who with each new novel is doing something new. I appreciate that in other writers.

Appreciate Doing You Stone New Tell

Work for most people is really very social, and the actual thinking is often done in community.

Work Community People Thinking Done

Of course it's why you want to become a writer - because you have the liberty to do that, but once you have the liberty you also have the obligation to do it.

You Liberty Want Why Become Because

It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.

Time Past People Story Short Why

Most of us don't live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

Live Expression Us Because Most Our

Perhaps that is why the novel flourished in England. You had these communities that would stay put and people would see one another all the time and cause one another to change and have the opportunity to observe the changes over time.

Change Opportunity Time People You

The short story, on the other hand, is the perfect American form.

Story American Short Perfect Hand

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