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Jincy Willett Quotes

Nothing was truly unbearable if you had something to read.

Nothing was truly unbearable if you had something to read.

Jincy Willett
Unbearable, Ifs
Jincy Willett (2009). “The Writing Class”, p.59, Macmillan

Just start the sentence...and see what happens. This is how we write.

Jincy Willett
Writing, Sentences, Happens

Dialogue is generally the worst choice for exposition. When you're writing lines you need to focus on the way people actually talk. And when we talk to each other we never actually explain our terms. We don't say 'Sweetheart, would you pass me the sugar bowl, which we picked up for a song at that antique stall in Munich.'

Jincy Willett
Song, Writing, People

Arithmetic is the death of story.

Jincy Willett
Stories, Arithmetic
Jincy Willett (2009). “The Writing Class”, p.248, Macmillan

That's the hard work of writing. The imagining.

Jincy Willett
Hard Work, Writing, Hard
Jincy Willett (2009). “The Writing Class”, p.76, Macmillan

You might ask yourself why you want to surprise your readers in the first place. A surprise ending is sort of like a surprise party. Probably some people, somewhere, enjoy having friends and trusted colleagues lunge at them in the sudden blinding light of their own living room, but I don't think most of us do.

Jincy Willett
Party, Thinking, Light
Jincy Willett (2009). “The Writing Class”, p.75, Macmillan

Reading was not an escape for her, any more than it is for me. It was an aspect of direct experience. She distinguished, of course, between the fictional world and the real one, in which she had to prepare dinners and so on. Still, for us, the fictional world was an extension of the real, and in no way a substitute for it, or refuge from it. Any more than sleeping is a substitute for waking." (Jincy Willett)

Jincy Willett
Real, Reading, Sleep
Jincy Willett (2010). “Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather”, p.53, Macmillan

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