Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is an American author and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is a senior lecturer of creative writing at Yale University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth6 November 1952
CountryUnited States of America
difference entitled equally great impulse perfect remove trying
The only difference was one of them was trying to make a perfect cake and one of them was trying to write a great book. But if we remove that from the equation, it's the same impulse and they are equally entitled to their ecstasies and their despair.
grateful trying world
Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful.
morning simple trying
What I wanted to do seemed simple. I wanted something alive and shocking enough that it could be a morning in somebody's life. The most ordinary morning. Imagine, trying to do that.
best conviction full intensity lack passionate worst
the worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction.
arty book dignity few march maybe sell shared thousand view whatever
If anything, I thought - and this view was shared by my publisher - that "The Hours" was going to be my arty little book and sell maybe a few thousand copies, and march with whatever dignity it could muster to the remainders tables.
arty book dignity few march maybe sell shared thousand view whatever
If anything, I thought - and this view was shared by my publisher - that ""The Hours"" was going to be my arty little book and sell maybe a few thousand copies, and march with whatever dignity it could muster to the remainders tables.
days dead great horses lying miraculous people regulation saying seven streets trash walked walt worked
People worked seven days for 12-14 hours, there was no regulation of any kind - there were no trash pick-ups, there were dead horses lying in the streets - and through all of this walked our great American whirling dervish, Walt Whitman, saying 'I find it all to my taste, I find it all miraculous and strange, and yes, even beautiful',
creation dogged number powerful various walt
Like any powerful creation, can be used in a number of ways... in this book, which chronicles various dissolutions and breakages, there is still Walt Whitman, the dogged optimist.
But Scott is the only one I've met.
characters clear people playing
Before there was any talk of a movie, people would sometimes ask me what actors I would imagine playing these characters. And the only thing I could ever say is: I have such a clear idea of these characters that they'd have to play themselves.
books both complete critically great last popular
As any student of literature knows, the books that last are often not the books that are most popular when they are written. Both 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' were complete failures, critically and commercially, when they first appeared.
knew light literally next
It's like a light went off right at that moment, ... I could see my project. I knew I had something. I literally started working on it that next day.
intend
We've been here for 150 years and we intend on being here 150 more.
bring happy ship traffic
We are happy to bring the ship in; it's the traffic going around it that's the problem.