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Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series QUOTES

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series QUOTES

1 " The germ of a story is something seen or heard, or heard about, or suddenly remembered; it may be a remark casually dropped at the dinner table (as in the case of Henry James's story, The Spoils of Poynton ) , or again it may be the look on a stranger's face. Almost always it is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood; something that expresses the mood in one sharp detail; something that serves as a focal point for a hitherto disorganized mass of remembered material in the author's mind. James describes it as "the precious particle ... the stray suggestion, the wandering word, the vague echo, at a touch of which the novelist's imagination winces as at the prick of some sharp point," and he adds that "its virtue is all in its needle-like quality, the power to penetrate as finely as possible. "

― Malcolm Cowley , Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series

2 " Thornton Wilder: The problem of telling you about my past life as a writer is like that of imaginative narration itself; it lies in the effort to employ the past tense in such a way that it does not rob those events of their character of having occurred in freedom. A great deal of writing and talking about the past is unacceptable. It freezes the historical in a determinism. Today’s
writer smugly passes his last judgment and confers on existing attitudes the lifeless aspect of plaster-cast statues in a museum.
He recounts the past as though the characters knew what was going to happen next. "

― Malcolm Cowley , Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series

3 " INTERVIEWER: So that you have not eliminated all didactic intentions from your work after all?
Thornton Wilder: I suspect that all writers have some didactic intention.
That starts the motor. Or let us say: many of the things we eat are cooked over a gas stove, but there is no taste of gas in the food. "

― Malcolm Cowley , Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series