Quote

The books turn out to be about things afterwards. I don't go into them with concepts, for the most part.

Jesse Ball

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jesse Ball
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: June 7
Novelist
Poet
Down Meadows
New York (former)
Concepts
Turn
Books
Turns
Part
Book
Things
Afterwards

More quotes by Jesse Ball

Image
It is at the heart of our human enterprise, that is to say, at the heart of society, to allow consensus a power it ought not to have.
Jesse Ball
Image
I don't think anything needs to happen in a book.
Jesse Ball
Image
I want to say less, and it's easier to say less.
Jesse Ball
Image
A beginning idea for a book might be: a boy emerges from a hole in the ground. He enters a house. The book will take place in the first ten minutes following his arrival.
Jesse Ball
Image
A book can just be a description of a stick being snapped in half. If the reader is brought to feel the plight of the stick, well, you can imagine what that would be like.
Jesse Ball
Image
Much of my work has been done in first person.
Jesse Ball
Image
I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance.
Jesse Ball
Image
The old man began to sing. His voice was very lovely and obviously a part of something that the world had disposed of in its haste, evidence of a grander, kinder past.
Jesse Ball
Image
I don't read books for pleasure, but in desperation.
Jesse Ball
Image
I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.
Jesse Ball
Image
One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.
Jesse Ball
Image
A person always has a chance to protest this or that.
Jesse Ball
Image
I'm clearer now in what I want to say, and I know better how to say just that.
Jesse Ball
Image
Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.
Jesse Ball
Image
I'd say writing is easier for me now than it once was, but I do less of it.
Jesse Ball
Image
I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.
Jesse Ball
Image
I'm an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.
Jesse Ball
Image
That would be the death of anyone - to recognize false hopes with a certainty. One mustn't know that. If it is offered, refuse!
Jesse Ball
Image
I like small books. I like durable books. I like plain books. I like small type and thin pages.
Jesse Ball
Image
Not that believing such things has anything to do with whether they are true. You see that, don't you?
Jesse Ball