Jami Attenberg Quotes

What's the point of having a book club if you don't get to eat brownies and drink wine?

In the wintertime I like macaroni and cheese.

An ellipsis is a giant ocean of possibilities.

I find that short stories are almost like palate cleansers, or brain cleansers.

You can quit smoking, and never have to have a cigarette again to survive. But with food, it is a daily challenge.

And we all get mired in the bullshit, the personality quirks, the personality disorders (ours and everyone else's), the jealousy, the disappointment, the blocks, the financial struggle, our egos, I do it too, I do it too, but if you can't remember it is all about the work and nothing else then I can't help you and you can't help yourself and you will lose. I promise you. You will lose.

I love doing readings. I could really give a crap about reviews. It's kind of about the readers.

Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women.

Most of my writer friends are women, and they're all extremely talented, so of course I think the state of contemporary fiction for women is pretty great. Which is to say there is a ton of amazing work out there. These women are writing hard. There's much to be said. We're on it, chief.

I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone's Christmas.

I just think structure can make a book feel so much bigger. It's the architecture. You could use flimsy materials if you wanted to, even, but it could still feel big.

What I try very hard to do is have an hour or so in the morning when I leave the house and don't have my phone with me. I'll go sit in a cafe and read and handwrite in my notebook and not be facing a screen. My head will be clear. I will be able to hear myself think. Because honestly for the rest of the day it's just screens, screens, screens.

In 1998, I started a blog, something I could control very easily and update at my own whim.

I'm not that much of a researcher. I'm good at channeling characters, and I'm good at structure.

Smart, sharp, and hilarious, Slaughterhouse 90210 is the perfect pick-me-up and never-put-me-down book.

We are human beings, not ants.

With apologies to all my past boyfriends, I never loved a man the way I loved my old apartment.

Sometimes, things are just exercises.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is a breezy, big-hearted treat, especially if you've ever wondered about the inner workings of America's national treasures--neighborhood bookstores.

Please make me either relatable or terrible.

It's good to try stuff. I wrote a book that I threw away, and I think I just wrote it so I could try stuff in it and not be scared

My last book was speculative. I just don't quite know what I am doing. But I'll get there. I have a list of things I would love to write.

I love reading books that you can't put down, and they just take you over for a night or a weekend.

I wish I could write while I'm on the road but it never works for me. I need to be sitting still.

Wouldn't that be nice if we could all afford to just freely pursue our dreams?

I had always loved life on the road. It was just something that appealed to me very deeply.

The very best parts of me go into my writing, it is the best version of myself, and I don't think it's hubristic to believe that that's worth something, worth someone else's time. It's the most I have to offer the world.

I don't pretend for a second that I'm that great of a person on a day-to-day basis. I'm a deeply flawed human.

I've just always written, and always considered myself a writer. I wrote my first story when I was five. There was nothing else I wanted to do or be.

Studying writing to me means reading and also rewriting obsessively. That's the best way to learn.

I wish I had the luxury of time to read and write like grad students do. That sounds pretty awesome. When I was writing my first book one of my friends was going to grad school at the same time and I heard a lot of stories about drinking, too. I feel like everyone was having affairs.

Writers have a job to do. Editors do, too. You have to stand ground and cede ground on a case by case basis. When an editor tells me something isn't working and I still believe in it, I tend to think it just isn't working hard enough.

In its current incarnation in my life touring is a lot of airports and hotels and car services and only OK food.

I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end.

My laptop broke and because of the storm I could not get a new one. And so I've been promoting my book via iPhone.

I smoked for many years like a total idiot.

People judge you because of your weight and your food issues. It's very visual.

The fascinating thing about food is that if you have issues with it, you have to face it every single day.

I'd love to be able to write crazy epic plots. I'm working on it.