“Suddenly everyone's tale is tellable, which seems to me a good thing, even if not everyone's story turns out to be fascinating or well told.”— David Shields, amazon.comTagged: Personal Writing, Personal Essays, Storytelling
“The Corrections, say: I couldn't read that book if my life depended on it. It might be a 'good' novel or it might be a 'bad' novel, but something has happened to my imagination, which can no longer yield to the earnest embrace of novelistic form.”— David Shields, amazon.comTagged: Jonathan Franzen, Novels
“It is indeed becoming more and more difficult, even senseless, for me to write an official English. And more and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must be torn apart in order to get at the things, or the Nothingness, behind it. Grammar and Style— to me they seem to have become as i…”— David Shields, amazon.comTagged: Writing
“There was a reason the church was the main cultural unifier in Western Europe: it had the best distribution network and the most mass-produced item— the Bible.”— David Shields, amazon.comTagged: Communications, Medium, The Bible, The Printing Press
“Here everything is admissible— philosophy, ethics, divinity, criticism, poetry, humor, fun, mimicry, anecdote, jokes, ventriloquism— all the breadth and versatility of the most liberal conversation, highest and lowest personal topics: all are permitted, and all may be combined into one speech.”— David Shields, amazon.comTagged: Communication, Speech, Thought Catalog
“I’m finding it harder to just ‘write.’ The seeking and sculpting of found text or sound have become my primary ‘artistic’ function. Actually generating that text or music seems increasingly difficult. Lately I’ll sit down with a blank pad and feel like I really have to dig down deep to get my own vo…”— David Shields, amazon.comTagged: Commonplace Book, Quotes, Writing