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I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.

Wally Lamb

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Wally Lamb
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: October 17
Author
Novelist
Writer
Norwich
Connecticut
Surprised
Starts
Best
Different
Writing
Going
Way
Defies
Like
Planned

More quotes by Wally Lamb

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As my early drawings warned me, where humans go, lions and tidal waves follow.
Wally Lamb
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Love comes in far more shapes and sizes than what the family-values crowd condones, of course.
Wally Lamb
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Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference
Wally Lamb
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If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.
Wally Lamb
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All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.
Wally Lamb
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The greatest griefs are silent.
Wally Lamb
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I walked over and looked closer at the statue of the goddess. She was wearing a headdress with a skull and a cobra and a crescent moon. Maybe this is what peace of mind was all about: having a poisonous snake on your head and smiling anyway.
Wally Lamb
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With destruction comes renovation.
Wally Lamb
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However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.
Wally Lamb
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I love revising. If you demystify the process, it comes down to four strategies: what can I do to make the draft better what should I cut out to make it stronger what do I need to do to clarify it and finally, what should I reposition.
Wally Lamb
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The evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.
Wally Lamb
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Power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed.
Wally Lamb
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If you risked love, it took you wherever you wanted to go. If you repressed it, you ended up unhappy.
Wally Lamb
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Life is a whoopee cushion, a chair pulled away just as you were taking a seat.
Wally Lamb
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Dialogue comes naturally to me and I can hear the characters' voices in the scenes.
Wally Lamb
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Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths.
Wally Lamb
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Look, don't just stare at the pages, I used to tell my students. Become the characters. Live inside the book.
Wally Lamb
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The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.
Wally Lamb
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I cried because I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet.
Wally Lamb
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I think... the secret is to just settle for the shape of your life takes...Instead of you know, always waiting and wishing for what might make you happy.
Wally Lamb