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Tom Bissell Quotes

To create anything… is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic.

To create anything… is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic.

Tom Bissell
Believe, Magic, Ifs
Tom Bissell (2012). “Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation”, p.16, McSweeney's

A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.

Tom Bissell
Writing, Wish, Doe
"Truth in Oxiana". Article by Tom Bissell, www.worldhum.com. February 15, 2006.

Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer-so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible.

Tom Bissell
Seductive, Impossible, Imitation

We are no longer worried that children are missing school because of video games, though. We are worried that they are murdering their classmates because of video games.

Tom Bissell
Children, School, Games

Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self.

Tom Bissell
Book, Reading, Thinking

Fun is not the same thing as fulfillment.

Tom Bissell
Fun, Fulfillment

When I play too many video games I begin to feel chubby-minded, caffeinated, bad.

Tom Bissell
Games, Play, Video

Most non-readers are nothing but an agglomeration of third-hand opinion and blindly received wisdom.

Tom Bissell
Hands, Opinion, Reader

Girlfriends, indeed: the anti-video game.

Tom Bissell
Girlfriend, Games, Video

An artist can respect the backfield of fact before which every human being stands and choose not to address those facts.

Tom Bissell
Artist, Addresses, Facts
Tom Bissell (2012). “Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation”, p.174, McSweeney's

To create anything — whether a short story or a magazine profile or a film or a sitcom — is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic. These essays are about that magic — which is sometimes perilous, sometimes infectious, sometimes fragile, sometimes failed, sometimes infuriating, sometimes triumphant, and sometimes tragic. I went up there. I wrote. I tried to see.

Tom Bissell
Believe, Magic, Stories

[M]y first published book had just appeared in stores. The last year of my life-the year of finishing it, editing it, and seeing it through its various page-proof passes-ranks among the most unnerving of my young life. It has not felt good, or freeing. It has felt nerve-shreddingly disquieting. Publication simply allows one that much more to worry about. This cannot be said to aspiring writers often or sternly enough. Whatever they carry within themselves they believe publication cures will not, I can all but guarantee, be cured. You just wind up with new diseases.

Tom Bissell
Believe, Book, Editing

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