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There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, Mistakes were made, you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.

Charles Baxter

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Charles Baxter
Poetry
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More quotes by Charles Baxter

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At its best, fiction is not a diversion but a means of knowing the world.
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I prefer short stories, but publishers would, of course, rather that writers produce novels, since novels are still more commercially viable.
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Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.
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When you break the heart of the philosopher, you must apply great force and cunning strategy, but when the deed is completed, the heart lies in great stony ruin at your feet. If you succeed in breaking it, the job is done once and for all. It will not be repaired.
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There is no weather in malls.
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The worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness.
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When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.
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Literature is not an instruction manual.
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When blame has been assigned, the story is over.
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Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.
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If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.
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When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.
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When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.
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A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.
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Everybody should customize their names.
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Literature is not a sack race. There aren't real winners and losers in the Republic of Letters.
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What a midwesterner he was, a thoroughly unhip guy with his heart in the usual place, on the sleeve, in plain sight.
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My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads.
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At least with pets, and for all I know, people too, intelligence and quick-wittedness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind, nothing at all, less than nothing.
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As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.
Charles Baxter