Darin Strauss Good Quotations

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

Like all writing rules, the injunction to start with the trouble can be broken, and it should be sometimes - if there's good reason.

Now, whether my not asking for good things to happen to me is subconsciously intended to win me brownie points with God is something I can't answer. But I do feel the need to give thanks and also not to feel hypocritical by asking for things when I have doubts that God would answer me.

What's Denver's feel? I know there're mountains, and people in western hats, but I never got a good sense of the city.

It's good training for a novelist to try to discern the truth about a place after only a few glimpses of it.

Society isn't good at dealing with people who have something concrete to feel guilty about or who are dealing with a loss.

A good writer knows that if her style and perceptions are really cooking, she can bring anything off. It's okay, of course, for novelists to depict bland, average families living bland, average lives in bland, average towns. But it isn't okay when those novelists don't outshine their bland, average subjects.