Quote

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

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
Thinking
Feelings
Front
Like
Remember
Computer
Smoked
Littles
Sitting
Cigarettes
Little
Room
Cigarette
Firsts
Novel
Smoke
First
Rooms
Wrote
Writing
Feeling
Fronts
Think
Bigs
Exactly

More quotes by Dani Shapiro

Image
I was in my early thirties writing about my early twenties, so there was this way of seeing my younger self from enough of a distance to have perspective but also not to feel that I had to protect myself. My dreams for myself then would have undersold myself in a way.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I did want to feel like life's all of one piece.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I could spend two years cross-legged on my floor and feel like I was working.
Dani Shapiro
Image
You can start your day over anytime.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Our minds have a tendency to wander. To duck and feint and keep us at a slight remove from the moment at hand.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Everything I know about life I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.
Dani Shapiro
Image
I’ve discovered that my best work comes from the uncomfortable but fruitful feeling of not having a clue – of being worried, secretly afraid, even convinced that I’m on the wrong track.
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
We are tyrannized by our options.
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
What's more important that spiritual life? It seems to me it's the bedrock of everything essential about being human.
Dani Shapiro
Image
It is only with distance that we are able to turn our powers of observation on ourselves, thus fashioning stories in which we are characters.
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
There is no end to the promotion. There is no end to the possibilities. You can continue to promote a book for years, literally.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Michael Lowenthal has written a big-hearted and wise book about familial love in all its richness and complexity.
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
In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Our pain is a part of who we authentically are.
Dani Shapiro
Image
Maggie Shipstead takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go. Astonish Me is a haunting, powerful novel.
Dani Shapiro