Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCrackenis an American author...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
humor life motto speaking trouble
You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and I'm speaking of life, not writing - is 'no humor too black.'
itself life outside whatever
Sadness was something I was thinking about in my life outside of writing, so it wormed itself into whatever I wrote.
constantly life likes
Life likes jokes; life is constantly making jokes, even at the most inopportune moments.
death goes life
I wanted to acknowledge that life goes on but that death goes on, too. A person who is dead is a long, long story.
people answers whole-life
but you can't spend your whole life hoping people will ask you the right questions. you must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask.
miscarriage happy-life missing
It's a happy life, but someone is missing. It's a happy life, and someone is missing.
again fact lazy life novel sure time
There was a time in my life when I wasn't sure I'd ever write a short story again because I had started writing novels, and I am fundamentally a lazy person, and the fact is that a novel is a lazy person's form, really. That is, you can amble; you can digress.
apart characters good guess novel people pulled stories structured wrecked
When I tell people there are three stories in 'Thunderstruck' that were from the same wrecked novel, they want to guess what they are. Nobody has. There are no characters or timelines in common. They're structured very differently. A good novel wouldn't have pulled apart so easily.
armchair bring certain chairs desk needed useful work worthy writer
I used to be a writer with superstitions worthy of a professional baseball player: I needed a certain desk chair and a certain armchair and a certain desk arrangement, and I could only get really useful work done between 8 P.M. and 3 A.M. Then I started to move, and I couldn't bring my chairs with me.
coffin enormous iron left looks lung rocket seal tight
An iron lung looks like an enormous metal coffin or a 19th-century rocket ship: only its occupant's head is left outside, a tight seal around the neck.
caps chair chance good people remember rocking saying
There's a good chance that in 40 years, after the floods, people zipping by on scavenged jetpacks with their scavenged baseball caps on backwards, I will be in my rocking chair saying bitterly, 'I remember when 'all right' was two words.'
happiness hit lots sentence
The thing that most interests me about writing - there are lots of things, but the thing I can't do without - is the hit of happiness a lovely sentence delivers.
absolutely appalling best childhood future religion sort
I've always been absolutely appalling about the future, but I sort of think that was my childhood religion. We were future deniers. You did your best in the present, which was all around you.
advice answer asked loved named people shelves somebody suggested worked writers
At my first library job, I worked with a woman named Sheila Brownstein, who was The Reader's Advisor. She was a short, bosomy Englishwoman who accosted people at the shelves and asked if they wanted advice on what to read, and if the answer was yes, she asked what writers they already loved and then suggested somebody new.