Quote

It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

Jeff VanderMeer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Writer
Question
Literature
Born
Validity
Nature
Describe
Great
Tension
World
Rely
Senses

More quotes by Jeff VanderMeer

Image
The stories in Get In Trouble confirm once again that Kelly Link is a modern virtuoso of the form-playful and subversive required reading for anyone who loves short fiction.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
I had learned so much about the world that I had decided to withdraw from it.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
Angela Carter's fiction blew me away and really instilled a passion for writing, bolstered by Vladimir Nabokov. But in general, I can't point to any one thing. I just always loved books and writing.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you're grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
Trust your imagination. Don't be afraid to fail. Write. Revise. Revise. Revise.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
I believe the best creative writing lessons live in the specifics.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
Dreams, though, are just one kind of inspiration - no more or less special than something in a newspaper article or from the world around you sparking inspiration.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
My mom is an artist and my own fiction is deeply visual.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, Don't write that, or Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
If the reader enters a kind of immersive experience reading a book, then I have to enter a kind of immersive state to do my best work.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
Once you realize there's less logic in human institutions than you once thought, you see the narrative potential in just about everything around you. Sometimes, in fact, it seems as if the human world runs on inefficiency and erratic behavior.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
Angela Carter, Leonora Carrington, even nonsurrealists like Kafka and Nabokov - writers like these, who create paths between the firmly grounded and flights of fantasy, are my personal North Star.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
If I wasn't a writer, I don't know what I'd be. Probably a marine biologist or something.
Jeff VanderMeer
Image
So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.
Jeff VanderMeer