Tracy Kidder Quotes - Page 2

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma.

Curing yourself of obsessive compulsive disorder by going to a strip club is pretty strange.

In the early days, computers inspired widespread awe and the popular press dubbed them giant brains. In fact, the computer's power resembled that of a bulldozer; it did not harness subtlety, though subtlety went into its design.

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.

My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.

I always want to write something better than the last book.

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.

People say you cant teach writing, but I think thats nonsense.

Paul Farmer has helped to build amazing health care system in one of the poorest areas of Haiti. He founded Partners in Health, which serves the destitute and the sick in many parts of the world from Haiti to Boston and from Russia to Peru.

The ocean doesn't care about you. It makes your boat feel tiny. The oceans are great promoters of religion, or at least of humility-but not in everyone.

Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.

Continuity is one of the things I like about New England.

I never planned on doing a book about Paul Farmer or his organization. I met him in Haiti when I was on a magazine assignment. It's almost like his story sort of fell in my lap.

I am grateful to Stacy Schiff first of all because she can write a sentence-because she offers us her scholarship with wit, clarity, and grace. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world new, again.

God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us

If you had an essentially happy childhood, that tends to dwell with you.

At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done.

If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia

When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression

In a very basic way, a prominent landmark such as Mt. Holyoke tells you where you are. They let you know that you're not the first person in a place

I've gotta keep life and computers separate, or else I'm gonna go mad.