The Destiny Thief Quotes

“The trouble with Hemingway’s cabin in the woods is that it’s a cabin and it’s in the woods. The Beatles didn’t get good by renting a self-storage garage in the boonies and doing their ten thousand hours in solitude. There seems to be an audience component to getting good, even if the audience happens to be in a Hamburg strip club. Yes, young writers need to log long hours with their tools, but once their solitary work’s done, they need to talk and compare notes with other apprentices, as well as mentors. With others, they need to test their sense of what’s working and what isn’t. Hearing even drunken applause is important; it helps you keep going.”
― Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life

“Laughter is often a more complex and thoughtful emotional response than tears, though we seem to believe that being moved to tears is somehow more noble”
― Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life

“A writer has to see things twice. First the thing itself, then its potential for a story. What he sees this second time is, in a sense, who he is. It’s his artistic personality. What he doesn’t see twice is just as revealing.”
― Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life

“Indeed, a good hint that you’ve entered the realm of Art is that you immediately feel like giving up.”
― Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life