Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Barry Hannahwas an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi. Hannah was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on April 23, 1942, and grew up in Clinton, Mississippi. He wrote eight novels and five short story collections...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 April 1942
CountryUnited States of America
believe writing thinking
I don't really believe in a creative-writing major as an undergraduate. It's a bad idea, terrible. I've met creative-writing majors from other places and they don't know a goddamn thing. They're the worst students. They just think they're good because they could pass.
drinking feel-good stuff
The wild stuff is all so overrated. Drinking, you don't feel good all the time. There's a lot of down, a lot of misery.
jobs mean chosen
A writers job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.
believe night machines
Where is the angry machine of all of us? Why is God such a blurred magician? Why are you begging for your life if you believe those things? Prove to me that you’re better than the rabbits we ate last night.
might howl wretched
The Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl.
hate drinking alcohol
The alcohol had the code and mystery about it as a writer's drug, but I'm glad that's been debunked. But the trouble with the drinking, much as I hate to admit it, is it helped the work.
inspiration wife my-wife
I wake my wife up at 3 a.m. and say, "Listen to this!"
lying halfway
You've got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself.
long clubs glee
Most novels I come across have all the excitement of a long trip on a bus with a sensitive glee club. Yammer and chat.
beautiful thinking two
The first two drinks were always wonderfully liberating. You think better. You're braver, and you'll say anything. If you could just hang in there with two or three, it'd be beautiful. The trouble was I couldn't.
pain joy narrative
Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.
thoughtful men narcissistic
I found out about reviews early on. They're mostly written by sad men on bad afternoons. That's probably why I'm less angry than some writers, who are so narcissistic they consider every line of every review, even a thoughtful one, as major treason.
thinking agony people
When you're not involved, other people's unhappiness seems to be about the funniest damn thing on earth because you think you can solve it, that you are God, that you are above this, and that their unhappiness is just such useless toil and agony. If it's you, it ceases to be a comedy.
boys practice miles
I wanted very much to be Miles Davis when I was a boy, but without the practice. It just looked like an endless road.