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
stories form concern
My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.
writing kind flaws
I was always kind of florid. And full of rhetoric. That was my flaw. My whole time writing, I've had to work against that because it can be a wrecking posture.
country writing motorcycle
I don't write under the ghost of Faulkner. I live in the same town and find his life and work inspiring, but that's it. I have a motorcycle and tool along the country lanes. I travel at my own speed.
stories plot language
My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end.
fun writing jumping
I'll tell you why I like writing: it's just jumping into a pool. I get myself into a kind of trance. I engage the world, but it's also wonderful to just escape. I try to find the purities out of the confusion. It's pretty old-fashioned, but it's fun.
joy needs hell
You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.
gratitude believe writing
I do believe that as you write more and age, the arrogance and most of the vanity goes. Or it is a vanity met with vast gratitude, that you were hit by something as you stood in the way of it, that anybody is listening.
plot care want
I don't really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.
writing done too-much
I distrust thought. The interior life is highly overrated. I don't like the wispy and the vague... or inductive logic in any kind of writing. I'm impatient with writers who make too much sense. The better things that I've done have come to me by instinct.
essence labyrinth bogs
What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is... We are all overbrained and overemotioned.
children parent grew
Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?
writing albums magazines
I wouldn't buy somebody's album on a dare if they called him a musician's musician. I don't write to be a writer's writer. I don't want to be like the little-magazine writer.
gun pistols stuff
I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It's a myth. There's so much bad gun stuff.
teacher school students
There was no one, when I was in school, who talked about going in and blowing up students. The teachers were very stern and hateable, but nobody ever mentioned murder.