David Shields : (10)

" I’m interested in non-fiction, but a form of it which is very badly behaved, which doesn’t define itself as straight-ahead journalism or memoir. It blurs boundaries, plays fast and loose with the truth – not to be silly, whimsical or lazy, but to get greater purchase on what it feels like to be alive. " - David Shields

" I am exhausted by traditional memoir. I am exhausted by the architecture of the conventional novel. " - David Shields

" I have a teaching job that allows me to pay the rent and affords me to, frankly, write the books I want to write. " - David Shields

" As a work gets more autobiographical, more intimate, more confessional, more embarrassing, it breaks into fragments. " - David Shields

" Considering the relatively brief careers of professional athletes, teenagers who are good enough to play at the highest level should be able to exploit that market. " - David Shields

" I’m very fond of this phrase: ‘Collage is not a refuge for the compositionally disabled.’ If you put together the pieces in a really powerful way, I think you’ll let a thousand discrepancies bloom. " - David Shields

" We hunger for connection to a larger community. " - David Shields

" Good poets borrow; great poets steal. " - David Shields

" I’m very drawn to the way in which a life lived can be an art of sorts or a failed art, and a life-lived-told can be art as well. " - David Shields

" We’re all Vanilla Ice. Look at Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Look at William Burroughs, whose cut-up books antedate hip hop sampling by decades. Shakespeare remixed passages of Holinshed’s ‘Chronicles’ in ‘Henry VI.’ Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’ embeds the French national anthem. " - David Shields