Stanley Elkin
Stanley Elkin
Stanley Lawrence Elkin was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 May 1930
CountryUnited States of America
agreeing bowl either life saying totally
What a writer's message is is totally unimportant. Either he is agreeing with life by affirming, or he is saying life is just a bowl of wormwood.
bottom die fact ought
The fact that we die is one of the more interesting things that happen to us. Fiction ought to be about bottom lines, and that's as bottom-line as you can get.
badly gift gives great nonfiction opportunity seems
I don't read much nonfiction because the nonfiction I do read always seems to be so badly written. What I enjoy about fiction - the great gift of fiction - is that it gives language an opportunity to happen.
holes plot
Plot is to literature what individual holes are to miniature golf.
terrified
I've always been terrified of dying, always. It was a concern of mine long before it had to be.
cousin either everybody found growing jersey named visited
When I was growing up, we had a bungalow in New Jersey which we visited in the summers. Everybody in that small community was named Feldman and was either an aunt or cousin of mine. I just found it comfortable to use the name Feldman.
crafts
The furthest out is the only place to be.
art order law
But it's hard to talk about art. Maybe there should be a law against it, some First Amendment gag order like crying fire in a crowded theater.
management fine diamond
It's fine, precise, detailed work, the infinitely small motor management of diamond cutters and safecrackers that we do in our heads.
inspiration heart rags
Like a lot of what happens in novels, inspiration is a sort of spontaneous combustion--the oily rags of the head and heart.
religious philosophy self
Like most people of my generation, I fell in love with the philosophy of existentialism. There is no particular religious tradition in my work. There is only one psychological assertion that I would insist upon. That is: the SELF takes precedence.
writing rope ends
I would never write about anyone who is not at the end of his rope.
distance order two
Life's tallest order is to keep the feelings up, to make two dollars' worth of euphoria go the distance. And life can't do that. So fiction does.
writing exercise rocks
Writing is an exercise in sculpture, chipping away at the rock until you find the nose.