Quote

Our pain is a part of who we authentically are.

Dani Shapiro

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Dani Shapiro
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: April 10
Author
Novelist
New York City
New York
Authentically
Pain
Part

More quotes by Dani Shapiro

Image
When I near the end of a book, it feels as if the entire universe meets me more than halfway and supports me. The whole world seems to shimmer when I find the words. My mind quiets.
Dani Shapiro
Image
If there's anything weirder than an introverted writer going to lots of social functions, it's an introverted writer being converted into an accidental guru.
Dani Shapiro
Image
When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.
Dani Shapiro
Image
In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I could spend two years cross-legged on my floor and feel like I was working.
Dani Shapiro
Image
When a writer's whole being is poured into a piece of work, there is never enough. The feeling of finally getting to the end of a piece of work, of making it as good as you can at that moment, is more of a relief than anything else, and then you wait for reviews.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Devotion, as it relates to the title of my memoir, means fidelity - as in fidelity to a person or a practice. I think it's certainly possible to feel devotion without having faith, at least in the religious sense of the word.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply religious and my mother was not.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are the lot of every writer, no matter where we are in our careers.
Dani Shapiro
Image
You can start your day over anytime.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people interrupt themselves in the middle of some story they're telling me to say, You know you can't write about this.
Dani Shapiro
Image
My journals were a clearing house - a garbage can. Once I was writing seriously, I understood that this was the stuff that didn't belong in my work.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I did want to feel like life's all of one piece.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I've certainly faced some raw, real pain in my life. I lost my father to a car accident when I was young. My mother died ten years ago. My son was very sick as an infant. Eventually, I have attempted to transform this pain into art, to make meaning out of it.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find it gets in the way.
Dani Shapiro
Image
If you write memoir, it can't be about blame or hurt it has to be creative.
Dani Shapiro
Image
We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache. In fact, to love - fully, madly, deeply - is the ensure heartache some day.
Dani Shapiro
Image
The fact is that most husbands, regardless of religion - it's an old-fashioned gender divide where the husband wants to stay home and the wife is the one who drags herself and her children to whatever spiritual center they're going to.
Dani Shapiro
Image
What's more important that spiritual life? It seems to me it's the bedrock of everything essential about being human.
Dani Shapiro