Diane Johnson Quotations

The Novelist, afraid his ideas may be foolish, slyly puts them in the mouth of some other fool and reserves the right to disavow them.

Not having to own a car has made me realize what a waste of time the automobile is.

Women have the feeling that since they didn't make the rules, the rules have nothing to do with them.

Laughter is the jam on the toast of life. It adds flavor, keeps it from being too dry, and makes it easier to swallow.

In what we think of as bad dialogue, the characters talk directly to each other.

Statuettes of drunken sailors, velvet pictures of island maidens, plastic seashell lamps made in Taiwan. What contempt the people who think up souvenirs have for other people.

Glenda Adams has written a wicked and witty novel.

A chaplain's biggest gift is to be present and just listen.

Any essayist setting out on a frail apparatus of notings and jottings is a brave person.

The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it.