Quote

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

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Jeff VanderMeer
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: July 7
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Bellefonte
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer
Anyway
Grateful
Asks
Give
Giving
Things

More quotes by Jeff VanderMeer

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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.
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I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't alone.
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History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.
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I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.
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My singing ability is zilch.
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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.
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My parents read to me a lot as a kid, and I started writing very early, probably spurred on by Aesop's fables. Then they gave me The Lord of the Rings way too early for me to fully understand what I was reading, which was actually kind of cool. It was almost better - comprehension's overrated when you're reading.
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I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.
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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.
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But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?
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I had learned so much about the world that I had decided to withdraw from it.
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Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?
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The world is a mysterious place and the very limitation of our senses in exploring it means we are sometimes aware of there being something beyond our ken.
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If I could play an instrument, it would probably be a cello or an electric guitar.
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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
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The music I listen to while writing is really scene-specific. It's just a great motivator, a way to put myself in the mood.
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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.
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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.
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There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.
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Trust your imagination. Don't be afraid to fail. Write. Revise. Revise. Revise.
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