As quoted in "The Michener Phenomenon" by Caryn James in The New York Times (8 September 1985)
“Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.”
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Annie Dillard 63
American writer 1945Related quotes
The Paris Review interview
Context: Many writers write a great deal, but very few write more than a very little of the real thing. So most writing must be displaced activity. When cockerels confront each other and daren’t fight, they busily start pecking imaginary grains off to the side. That’s displaced activity. Much of what we do at any level is a bit like that, I fancy. But hard to know which is which. On the other hand, the machinery has to be kept running. The big problem for those who write verse is keeping the machine running without simply exercising evasion of the real confrontation. If Ulanova, the ballerina, missed one day of practice, she couldn’t get back to peak fitness without a week of hard work. Dickens said the same about his writing—if he missed a day he needed a week of hard slog to get back into the flow.
Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
Interview in The Paris Review, Issue #13 http://books.google.com/books?id=iZt6sBaHemQC&q="all+those+writers+who+write+about+their+childhood+gentle+god+if+i+wrote+about+mine+you+wouldn't+sit+in+the+same+room+with+me"&pg=PA8#v=onepage (Summer 1956)
Song lyrics, See How We Are (1987), See How We Are
“As far as I'm concerned the only thing to do is sit in a room and get drunk”
“Writers move with grace in and out of many worlds.”
Essay, "Writers have good figures". p.56
Writing Down the Bones (1986)