Annie Proulx quotes

Annie Proulx is an American novelist and journalist, acclaimed for her richly detailed storytelling and evocative prose. Her works often explore the harsh realities of rural life in the American West, with "The Shipping News" and "Brokeback Mountain" among her most famous pieces. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Here are 31 of her quotes:

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.

Annie Proulx

If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.

Annie Proulx

We run a car wreck photo every week, whether we have a car wreck or not. That's our golden rule.

Annie Proulx

All stemmed from Quoyle's chief failure, a failure of normal appearance.

Annie Proulx

In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible... Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result.

Annie Proulx

He [Quoyle] did not want a boat, shied from the thought of water. Ashamed he could not swim, couldn't learn.

Annie Proulx

This has always bothered me, the division: as though there was something about women who write that is very different.

Annie Proulx

I don't think I was a particularly good or diligent mother. It took a long time for the obvious to become obvious: I could not operate in a conventional family.

Annie Proulx

It's kind of an old-fashioned book...It's long; it has a lot of characters; it takes a big theme. It isn't a navel-staring, dysfunctional-family thing that's so beloved of most American writers. It's different, but I think people probably miss those books that were written some time ago – the big book that was written with care.

Annie Proulx

The construction of short stories calls for a markedly different set of mind than work on a novel, and for me short stories are at once more interesting and more difficult to write than longer work. The comparative brevity of the story dictates more economical and accurate use of words and images, a limited palette of events, fewer characters, tighter dialogue, strong title and punctuation that works to move the story forward. If the writer is trying to illustrate a particular period or place, a collection of short stories is a good way to take the reader inside a house of windows, each opening onto different but related views-a kind of flip book of place, time and manners.

Annie Proulx

Place and history are central to the fiction I write, both in the broad, general sense and in detailed particulars. Rural North America, regional cultures in critical economic flux, the images of an ideal and seemingly attainable world the characters cherish in their long views despite the rigid and difficult circumstances of their place and time. Those things interest me and are what I write about. I watch for the historical skew between what people have hoped for and who they thought they were and what befell them.

Annie Proulx

I loathe interviews and getting me to sit still for a whole day is unprecedented.

Annie Proulx

Nutbeem influenced a little by the lunar cycle. Had a touch of werewolf. At full moon he burst, talked himself dry, took exercise in the form of dancing and fighting at the Starlight Lounge, then slowly fell back to contemplation.

Annie Proulx

For the devil had long ago taken a shine to Tert Card, filled him like a cream horn with itch and irritation. His middle initial was X. Face like cottage cheese clawed with a fork.

Annie Proulx

The ocean twitched like a vast cloth spread over snakes.

Annie Proulx

Dad, there's smoke coming out of the can and coming out of your mouth, too. How do you do that, daddy?

Annie Proulx

the old place of the Quoyles, half ruined, isolated, the walls and doors of it pumiced by stony lives of dead generations. The aunt felt a hot pang. Nothing would drive them out a second time.

Annie Proulx

which bloody misbegotten Card takes the liberty of recasting in his own insane tongue. As the bloody bog-rat's just done.

Annie Proulx

That was the stuff of other lives, he was waiting for his to begin. He got in the habit of walking around the trailer and asking aloud, "Who knows?" He said, "Who knows?" For no one knew. He meant, anything could happen. A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.

Annie Proulx

Quoyle, who spoke little himself, inspired talkers. His only skill in the game of life.

Annie Proulx

And three lucky stones strung on a wire to keep the house safe.

Annie Proulx

Petal, like a persistent song phrase, like a few stubborn lines of verse memorized in childhood. The needle was stuck.

Annie Proulx