Francine Prose
Francine Prose
Francine Proseis an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic. She is a Visiting Professor of Literature at Bard College, and was formerly president of PEN American Center...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth1 April 1947
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
supposed
I think of myself as someone with a kind of Tourette's. I cannot help saying the thing you're not supposed to say.
time
Of course, I've always read. I started when I was four years old and just didn't stop. I read all the time.
aesthetic approach art fresh start suggest work
A work of art can start you thinking about some aesthetic or philosophical problem; it can suggest some new method, some fresh approach to fiction.
time
I'm in a rage all of the time.
emerge polished satisfying sentence snap ultimately
For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what's superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially, cut, is essential. It's satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, economical, sharp.
comedy conference learned lucid plot prose samuel sentences studied work writers
Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson.
long seven-days week
I work really long days and I work seven day weeks.
sports kids loss
I remember, when I was a little kid, I was good at sports, and I could jump off the high board. And then puberty hit, and suddenly I was looking to boys for direction. I remember that as a great loss.
thinking fiction dramatic
I think poets are much more dramatic, more theatrical than fiction writers.
four journalism novel
I wrote about four novels before I wrote a word of journalism.
writing thinking twelve
If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in.
college ideas support
I went through college in the 1960s without having any idea that I was going to have to make a living. When I graduated in 1968 it was quite a shock to find out that there was a world out there and that it wasnt going to support me.
goal information speak
When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal.
running grief dark
But beneath it all will run that Sicilian understanding that the underside of joy is grief, that the face of sacrifice and suffering is the dark mirror image of pleasure and enjoyment, that every moment of arrival is to be treasured and enjoyed in the full knowledge that it has brought us a moment closer to the moment of departure.