Quote

I started writing the one-sentence stories when I was translating 'Swann's Way.' There were two reasons. I had almost no time to do my own writing, but didn't want to stop. And it was a reaction to Proust's very long sentences.

Lydia Davis

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Lydia Davis
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 15
Linguist
Novelist
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Northampton
Massachusetts
Two
Sentence
Stories
Reactions
Reason
Sentences
Writing
Reasons
Long
Started
Translating
Way
Stop
Proust
Time
Almost
Translate
Didn
Reaction

More quotes by Lydia Davis

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I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it.
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Do what you want to do, and don't worry if it's a little odd or doesn't fit the market.
Lydia Davis
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My stories are sometimes closer to poems or meditations, but often there is at least a little narrative in them.
Lydia Davis
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I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting.
Lydia Davis
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So the question really is, Why doesn't that pain make you say, I won't do it again? When the pain is so bad that you have to say that, but you don't.
Lydia Davis
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Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to people - or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original.
Lydia Davis
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I'm a fierce editor! I don't edit out things that I began by saying, usually. The editing is on the micro level - a comma here, a word there.
Lydia Davis
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If I was writing about an academic or a more difficult person, I would use the Latinate vocabulary more, but I do think Anglo-saxon is the language of emotion.
Lydia Davis
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I never dream in French, but certain French words seem better or more fun than English words - like 'pois chiches' for chick peas!
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The style developed over decades, really, but I started out writing pretty traditional stories, then became impatient. It was a writer named Russell Edson who showed me that one could write in any way at all.
Lydia Davis
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As the writer, I may choose to ignore the emotional heart of the matter, and focus on details, and trust that the heart of the matter will be conveyed nevertheless.
Lydia Davis
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But it is curious how you can see that an idea is absolutely true and correct and yet not believe it deeply enough to act on it.
Lydia Davis
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Art is not in some far-off place.
Lydia Davis
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There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.
Lydia Davis
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I think a lot of what goes into writing can be taught - not mixing metaphors, etc.
Lydia Davis
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I don't believe a good poet is very often deliberately obscure. A poet writes in a way necessary to him or her the reader may then find the poem difficult.
Lydia Davis
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Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.
Lydia Davis
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I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like to knock other writers as a matter of principle.
Lydia Davis
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To be simple, I would say a story has to have a bit of narrative, if only she says, and then enough of a creation of a different time and place to transport the reader.
Lydia Davis
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I worked more intensively hour after hour when I was starting out [writing]. More laboriously. I'd say quantity is important as well as quality, and if you're not producing enough, make a schedule and stick to it.
Lydia Davis