Darin Strauss Quotes

Powerful Darin Strauss for Daily Growth

About Darin Strauss

Darin Strauss (born December 14, 1968) is an American novelist and memoirist, best known for his poignant narratives that intertwine personal introspection with societal critique. Born in Queens, New York, Strauss grew up in New Jersey where he developed a love for reading and writing at an early age. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning a degree in English, before moving on to Columbia University's School of the Arts for his MFA in Fiction Writing. Strauss's breakthrough work was "Chang and Eng" (2000), a novel inspired by the lives of the original Siamese Twins, which garnered critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His subsequent novels, such as "The Real McCoy" (2007) and "Half a Life" (2015), delve into themes of love, identity, and the unintended consequences of life choices. One of Strauss's most impactful works is the memoir "More Than It Hurts You" (2003), which chronicles his experience as a driver involved in a fatal car accident that claimed the life of a high school classmate. This tragic event has significantly influenced his writing, serving as a source of inspiration for many of his later works. Strauss's work often explores the complexities of human relationships and the ways in which our lives are shaped by both conscious and unconscious choices. He is also known for his innovative narrative styles, blending fiction with reality to create compelling and thought-provoking stories. Strauss currently resides in New York City, where he continues to write and teach creative writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The road to love is paved with small moments."

This quote suggests that the journey towards meaningful, deep love is not a grand, dramatic adventure as often portrayed in stories, but rather a series of small, seemingly insignificant moments shared between two people. These seemingly ordinary instances, when combined, create the foundation for a strong and enduring relationship. It's a reminder to cherish every interaction with our loved ones, as it could be one of those "small moments" that help build a lasting connection.

"Sometimes I think you can't know a man until you know his stories about his grandmother."

This quote suggests that understanding a person's stories about their grandmother offers a valuable perspective into their character, emotions, values, and relationships. These narratives reflect personal connections, family history, cultural background, and often reveal aspects of one's upbringing, beliefs, and experiences. By listening to these stories, we can gain insight into the unique bond between the individual and their grandmother, which in turn offers a richer understanding of the person themselves.

"I don't want to survive. I want to live." (from "Half a Life")

This quote by Darin Strauss emphasizes the distinction between mere existence (surviving) and active, meaningful participation in life (living). It suggests that one should strive not just to endure hardships or challenges, but to seek out and cherish experiences that bring purpose, passion, and fulfillment. In essence, it's a call to not only get through life, but to truly live it with intention and joy.

"The only time we have is the present, and that's all we really own."

This quote underscores the idea that the only tangible possession we truly possess in life is the present moment. It encourages us to appreciate, utilize, and live fully within the present, as it is the only aspect of time that we can control or experience directly. By fully embracing the present, we maximize our opportunities for growth, happiness, and connection with others and ourselves.

"You can't change what happened; you can only accept it and move on."

This quote emphasizes the importance of acceptance in dealing with past events or circumstances that cannot be changed. It encourages individuals to come to terms with their past, acknowledge it for what it is, and then focus on moving forward towards personal growth and a more fulfilling future rather than being stuck in regret or bitterness. Essentially, it's about embracing the power of acceptance to find peace and healing.

I went to Aspen right after school and got a freelance gig writing articles for the 'Aspen Times.' I was their nightlife correspondent. They paid me fifty bucks an article.

- Darin Strauss

Fifty, Nightlife, Bucks, Gig

I have twin six-year-old boys. Have no mojo. The closest thing to a mojo I have is five minutes of peace.

- Darin Strauss

Minutes, Closest Thing, Mojo

I got a job writing for a financial technology newsletter in Manhattan. I didn't even understand what I was writing about. The newsletter had, like, 2,000 subscribers, and it was $700 a year for a subscription.

- Darin Strauss

Financial, Year, Like, Subscription

A tragedy's first act is crowded with supporting players, policeman scribbling in pads and making radio calls, witnesses crimping their faces, EMS guys folding equipment.

- Darin Strauss

Making, Players, Scribbling, Folding

I'm no fan of jam bands. You can take your Gov't Mule, your Phish, your Rusted Root. But Derek Trucks is a special musician - perhaps the greatest slide guitarist who ever lived.

- Darin Strauss

Special, Your, Bands, Mule

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

- Darin Strauss

Good, Training, About, Discern

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.

- Darin Strauss

Average, Novelists, Depict, Perceptions

Surprisingly, Manhattan casts a sort of undersized shadow onto Long Island. Where I grew up, everyone seemed totally disconnected from the city - ours could have been any suburb, anywhere - though when traffic was thin, it took us only half an hour to get into midtown.

- Darin Strauss

Been, Long Island, Half, Surprisingly

In Minneapolis, I learned that there are more theaters per square mile than in any U.S. city but New York, and we also had great Midwestern beef in our salads in a plaza overlooking the national headquarters of Target, Inc.

- Darin Strauss

City, Beef, Had, Theaters

One of the disconcerting things about writing for publication is that you're trying to clear your little parcel of land in a field where Taste is king - and, as we all know, there's no accounting for Taste.

- Darin Strauss

King, Taste, Parcel, Publication

Conjoined twins are identical siblings who develop one placenta out of a single fertilised ovum. No cases of conjoined triplets or quadruplets have been documented.

- Darin Strauss

Been, Develop, Cases, Triplets

Maybe the 'Million Little Pieces' of the world are so popular because no one ever writes memoirs about PTA chairwomen; what memoirists do, and often get in trouble for, is bring interesting lives to light.

- Darin Strauss

Maybe, Memoirs, Lives, Writes

Too much contemporary fiction seems purposefully to address small things in small ways. And yet why not try for the all-inclusive, the gripping, for the audacious?

- Darin Strauss

Small, Fiction, Address, Why Not

Usually, as a fiction writer, you get e-mails saying, 'I liked your book,' or 'I didn't like it.' You don't get something saying, 'I'm really glad this is in the world.'

- Darin Strauss

Book, Fiction, Like, Fiction Writer

Regret doesn't budge things; it seems crazy that the force of all that human want can't amend a moment, can't even stir a pebble.

- Darin Strauss

Regret, Want, Amend, Pebble

Constant rejection. No security. Career paths being dictated by freelance reviewers. And of course, the terror of the writing desk, of the blank page. Why is it so hard for our non-writer friends to understand this - that it's a job?

- Darin Strauss

Career, Constant, Blank, Freelance

In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.

- Darin Strauss

Desire, Pretty, Concrete, Primary

Perhaps it's because a writer lives in Brooklyn that he'd want to get away from it. It can be very sustaining, this community of writers - sometimes it's the feeling of many hands giving you a boost. But all that identical ambition can be choking, too. The many hands slide up to your throat.

- Darin Strauss

Hands, Away, Very, Boost

My prayer is improvised - though like some standard jazz performance, the improv happens within pretty strict parameters - and asks for nothing.

- Darin Strauss

Some, Pretty, Standard, Strict

I'm very strict in my belief that non-fiction should be truthful, and fiction is for invented narratives.

- Darin Strauss

Fiction, Very, Narratives, Strict

Even the best novels have their share of stinker lines.

- Darin Strauss

Best, Share, Even, Novels

After a life deprived of everything from romantic love to the choice of when to wake up in the morning, after 29 years without the ability to have a career or even to be alone at toilet, the Bijani sisters are not symbols but women who have had to live a shared life of constant, quotidian sacrifice.

- Darin Strauss

Love, Career, Shared, Deprived

Often it's the people who know a place least well who write about it best because they see it fresh.

- Darin Strauss

Often, About, Least, Fresh

If the memoirist is borrowing narrative techniques from fiction, shouldn't the novelist borrow a few tricks from successful non-fiction?

- Darin Strauss

Fiction, Narrative, Tricks, Borrowing

The novelist has permission to do whatever she chooses to supercharge whatever's interesting in her story. This is also known as freedom.

- Darin Strauss

Interesting, Permission, Chooses

V. S. Pritchett was one of the most admired, fun, talked-about writers of the 20th century: he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his work with prose. He was born in 1900, wrote till he died in 1997, and has been tidily forgotten ever since. This is a real shame.

- Darin Strauss

Shame, Been, Till, 20th Century

What makes writing a memoir difficult is harder to quantify. Is it learning to know when you're ready to talk about something? Is it seeing the structure in a lumpen mass of fact? Is it finding out what you were really like as other people saw you? Yes to each.

- Darin Strauss

Fact, Other, Mass, Quantify

You can work really hard and well on something, and someone you respect might hate it; worse, they're not empirically wrong for doing so. This is scary, especially for people who haven't been published.

- Darin Strauss

Work, Doing, Been, Empirically

Characters stretching their legs in some calm haven generally don't make for interesting protagonists.

- Darin Strauss

Calm, Some, Characters, Protagonists

I thought, 'I'll come back to New York. I worked for the 'Aspen Times' when I lived in Aspen. I'll work for the 'New York Times' when I live in New York.' It didn't work out that way.

- Darin Strauss

Work, Thought, New, New York Times

For the fiction students I teach, one of the most common mistakes is to start in the wrong place. Often the actual story doesn't begin until about a third of the way into their narratives. They start off instead with excessive scene-setting, metaphysical speculation, introducing nonessential dramatis personae, throat-clearing, etc.

- Darin Strauss

Fiction, Metaphysical, About, Excessive

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.

- Darin Strauss

Asking, Feel, Hypocritical, Good Things

You get a bad review with a novel, and it hurts. But I imagine if you get a bad review with a memoir, it hurts more because you can always say, 'Well, they didn't like my characters,' but when you're the character, it's like, 'Oh, yeah, they actually didn't like me.'

- Darin Strauss

Bad, Yeah, Characters, Novel

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots.

- Darin Strauss

Need, For Example, Does, Novel

I spent three and a half years writing the novel 'Chang & Eng,' about the conjoined brothers for whom the term 'Siamese twins' was contrived, and when I think of these afflicted people, my only emotion is one of profound sympathy.

- Darin Strauss

I Think, Brothers, Half, Novel

I delivered Chinese food on Long island, which is pretty depressing. I lived with my parents and did that for six months. I got a job a few towns over from mine so I wouldn't have to see people from my high school.

- Darin Strauss

Got, Long Island, Delivered, Depressing

In each scene, the writer sets up a situation, which brings a conflict as well as either a small victory or a loss at the close of that particular scene.

- Darin Strauss

Small, Which, Sets, Conflict

My first book is about twins who are attached: two people who are joined and can't escape each other.

- Darin Strauss

Book, Other, Joined, Escape

It's a very performative thing, grief. As with so much in modern life, I think there's a whole performative layer to what we do because we feel like there's a private TV show viewing our lives.

- Darin Strauss

Private, Very, TV, Grief

Memoirs are - memory is - rarely 100 percent accurate. Any autobiography is a construct, ballpark, even unnatural. Private diaries, too, can be unreliable - a detail that matters only if the diary is read.

- Darin Strauss

Memory, Private, Read, Unreliable

When you write fiction, you have an ideal reader in your mind who's sort of you but smarter.

- Darin Strauss

Mind, Fiction, Ideal, Smarter

The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on giant bugs.

- Darin Strauss

Trust, Main Thing, Eager, Strategically

I think it's a wonderful fact about Judaism - at least about the approach to Judaism I most relate to: There are no universal answers. We don't have it all figured out. God is unknowable.

- Darin Strauss

Think, Fact, I Think, Unknowable

My knowledge of trains - and love before first sight, love at negative-one sight - comes from Alfred Hitchcock.

- Darin Strauss

Love, Before, Trains

In the worst memoirs, you can feel the author justifying himself - forgiving himself - in every paragraph. In the best memoirs, the author is tougher on him- or herself than his or her readers will ever be.

- Darin Strauss

Will, Memoirs, Paragraph, Herself

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

- Darin Strauss

Broken, Reason, Injunction, Good Reason

The starkest rejection letter might be followed by a million-dollar advance. Don't let rejection start to look the same as failure.

- Darin Strauss

Failure, Same, Might, Letter

I guess when you write a personal story, people feel compelled to share their own stories.

- Darin Strauss

Own, Feel, Stories, Compelled

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.

- Darin Strauss

Mountains, City, Good Sense, Western

To a lot of us, literature's eternal significance had seemed beyond arguing - like, say, the illegality of government-sponsored torture.

- Darin Strauss

Like, Arguing, Seemed, Significance

I suppose that, for most of us, the fascination of conjoined twins is that such people can serve as symbols.

- Darin Strauss

Serve, Twins, Most, Fascination

All writers have their own pet commandments.

- Darin Strauss

Pet, Own, Writers, Commandments

I'm really wary of self-help books.

- Darin Strauss

Books, Self-Help, Really, Wary

My training and my inclination is to invent.

- Darin Strauss

Training, Invent, Inclination

Not to be too 'Tale of Two Cities' about it, but I find writing a memoir easier than writing fiction, and more difficult.

- Darin Strauss

More, Fiction, Cities, Memoir

I consider myself a Jewish writer - even if my characters frequently are not Jewish - in the same way, I guess, that I consider myself a Jewish man, even though I don't often attend shul.

- Darin Strauss

Myself, Attend, Though, Frequently

I've had menial jobs, and 'professional writer' isn't one of them.

- Darin Strauss

Jobs, Had, Them, Professional

My wife and I live in Brooklyn, N.Y., not too far from where my Long Island childhood happened.

- Darin Strauss

Wife, Childhood, Long Island, Brooklyn

If you're guilty of something, you can focus on that, but if something terrible happens, and you can't imagine how you could have changed it, that's very difficult for the mind. In some ways, it's more difficult not to be at fault because it's a subtler thing.

- Darin Strauss

Mind, Some, Very, Fault

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

- Darin Strauss

Society, Loss, Concrete, Guilty

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