Dani Shapiro
Dani Shapiro
Daneile Joyce "Dani" Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 April 1962
CountryUnited States of America
moments truth-is present-moment
The truth is in the present moment.
trying things-change moments
Everything changes. The more I try to hold on to the moment, the more it slips through my fingers.
heart son moments
My son is now fourteen, and from the moment he was born, I understood that forevermore my heart would be walking around outside my body.
past wish moments
I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away. The truth is in the present moment. The great paradox is that when I'm really able to do that, time slows down and opens up. Time feels suddenly and inexplicably without end.
moments possibility divine
Recognize the possibility of the divine in any given moment.
fallen legs moved
Sometimes when I'm at my desk, I'll realize that I have contorted myself completely, and I haven't moved for hours, and that my legs have fallen asleep. I am elsewhere, not in my body, not in the room, not in my house.
When it comes to the personal essays I write, I just convince myself that no one will ever read them.
expected home investment jewish kids marry orthodox raise raised suburbs
I was raised in an orthodox Jewish home where it was expected that, as a woman, I'd marry an investment banker, raise kids in the suburbs and go to temple. I wasn't raised to set the world on fire.
fluent orthodox spoke thirteen until
One of the stranger things about me is that I was raised as an Orthodox Jew. I went to a yeshiva until I was thirteen years old and spoke fluent Hebrew.
excitement family heading hill house occasional save top
I live with my family on the top of a hill in the country, and during the days, my house is quiet, save for the occasional excitement of the FedEx truck heading up the driveway. I write.
learn time
With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
guru social function
If there's anything weirder than an introverted writer going to lots of social functions, it's an introverted writer being converted into an accidental guru.
pieces want one-piece
I did want to feel like life's all of one piece.
thinking community solitude
I think so much about how we read, about the nature of solitude, and of community, is changing in ways that none of us yet understand.