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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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Its the most breathtakingly ironic things about living: the fact that we are all-identical twins included-alone. Singular. And yet what we seek-what saves us-is our connection to others.
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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Human behavior in the midst of hardship caught my attention very early on, and my first stories were all pictures, no words.
Wally Lamb
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So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.
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
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But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?
Wally Lamb
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Love grows from the rich foam of forgiveness, mongrels make good dogs, and the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.
Wally Lamb
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I'm a very rooted person. I grew up in Norwich, Connecticut, I still live in Connecticut.
Wally Lamb
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First I laughed my way through Elinor Lipman's book of political tweets. Then I put my ear to the ground and listened to Molly Ivins guffawing from the grave. Lipman is a piquant poetic rock star!
Wally Lamb
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When I was a kid, I was surrounded by girls: older sisters, older girl cousins just down the street... except for an older boy named Vito who threw rocks. Each year I would wish for a baby brother. It never happened.
Wally Lamb
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Only there's two sides to every story, you know. You just remember that.
Wally Lamb
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I am a plodder, I make an appointment with my computer everyday and I have no idea where I am going.
Wally Lamb
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The evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.
Wally Lamb
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I need to get lost and sometimes my characters lead me to places I don't expect to go.
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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I cried because I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet.
Wally Lamb
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What if I don’t like adventure? Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.
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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If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them.
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