Ethan Canin Quotes

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Ethan Canin

Profession : Author

Birth : July 19, 1960

No matter what writers say, most stories are about ourselves. The facts might change a little, but not much.

Ethan Canin

I like writing about the evil lurking in apparently good people.

Ethan Canin

Families tend to artificially divide the world, imbuing one member with all the attributes and another with all the faults. But it's never that way.

Ethan Canin

When I write, I can become this ecstatic, crazy fellow, hearing the voices and just loosening up and letting them grow.

Ethan Canin

A novel, at least for me, cannot be visualized at one time.

Ethan Canin

When the narrator says, 'This is a story without surprises,' most of the time, this is not what happens.

Ethan Canin

People are surprised when Hollywood characters act the way a real person would.

Ethan Canin

When you're in medicine - especially when you're a resident in a public hospital - you feel like you're doing your part. But not when you're a writer.

Ethan Canin

Writers of literature make very little money.

Ethan Canin

I think even great writers only write two books that you might like. When I think of my touchstone writers like Saul Bellow, I think of 'Henderson the Rain King.' With Don DeLillo, I think of 'Libra.'

Ethan Canin

Point of view gets me. If I can feel like a character rather than a reader, I'll read that book.

Ethan Canin

I can only remember two books from college that moved me: E.M. Forster's 'Howards End' and F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.'

Ethan Canin

I like to write about the moment of light in the hour of darkness.

Ethan Canin

I really enjoy the immediacy of the 'knife and gun clubs,' as they're so callously called. Emergency is a great place to learn about people.

Ethan Canin

There has always been a tension in my life between the romantic and the practical. I can't hole myself up in a cabin and write down ideas for the rest of my life. I also need to be able to clean out a dog bite.

Ethan Canin

Every time I'd sing or play piano when I was a child, my dad would yell up from the basement, 'That's B-flat!'

Ethan Canin

There once was this powerful, both capital and political, class who cared about supporting and affirming a solid middle class in this country.

Ethan Canin

I have a very bad memory. I can't remember my own life very well.

Ethan Canin

Fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition, small disappointed hope.

Ethan Canin

Your first book is kind of a labor of ignorance. You don't realize the difficulty of it. Your second book is sort of a labor of fear. Then you sort of either hit a stride, or you don't.

Ethan Canin