Ethan Canin

Writers of literature make very little money. ”

I've discovered over the years that being subject to both the adoration and the vilification actually makes me more disciplined. It makes me understand that it's the idea of writing a great book that propels me now, whereas it used to be the idea of success. ”

Medicine ended up being the best thing I ever did for my writing. ”

The only successful way to write, and the only one I have found, is to be the character. Give up on trying to control them. Writers always talk about hearing voices. That's what they mean. ”

I think one of the battles for fiction writers is how much to invent or exaggerate. ”

Mathematicians don't like it when they're associated with mental illness and sort of bristle when you say that they can't get along socially, that they're not good with people. ”

I don't want to be movie-star famous. I want to move people with my writing. ”

I never set out to be a published writer. ”

Although I think I'm relatively happy as a person, I think there's something unhappy at the root of all my writing. I'd say optimistic but unhappy. Nothing that's particularly original, other than that we're going to live and die, and terrible things happen. ”

I can only remember two books from college that moved me: E.M. Forster's 'Howards End' and F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.' ”