Francine Prose Quotes

Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

Reading was like eating alone, with that same element of bingeing.

A lot of girls who turn into something remarkable start off as irrepressible, confident and a handful.

What I love is how pissed off Jane Eyre is. She's in a rage for the whole novel and the payoff is she gets to marry this blind guy who's toasted his wife in the attic." -Angela Argo "Blue Angel

When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal.

Like seeing a photograph of yourself as a child, encountering handwriting that you know was once yours but that now seems only dimly familiar can inspire a confrontation with the mystery of time.

We never believe we're beautiful, no matter how many times we hear it. We never believe it until someone says it in the right way.

I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.

I know a lot of Eastern Europeans, and because of what they have been through and what they have seen, they have an attitude where they are not easily fooled.

There are many occasions in literature in which telling is far more effective than showing.

I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.

You aim for what you want and if you don't get it, you don't get it, but if you don't aim, you don't get anything.

If we want to write, it makes sense to read—and to read like a writer. If we wanted to grow roses, we would want to visit rose gardens and try to see them the way that a rose gardener would.

People see everything through the lens of their obsessions.

I think poets are much more dramatic, more theatrical than fiction writers.

If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in.

Words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

Traditionally, the love of reading has been born and nurtured in high school English class

I work really long days and I work seven day weeks.

Fact-checking is so boring compared to writing fiction.

I wrote about four novels before I wrote a word of journalism.

And there was that trick he did with time, making it speed up when we were together and drag til I saw him again.

Throughout her life, she behaved as if she had never heard anyone suggest that a woman couldn't do entirely as she pleased.

Every song may be someone's personal implement of torture.

A neighbor once told me he had trouble with García Márquez’s novel because he likes to drink while he reads, and 'The Autumn of the Patriarch' gave him no space in which to take a sip of his beer.