Words matter. These are the best David Guterson Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Don Quixote is one that comes to mind in comparison to mine, in that they both involve journeys undertaken by older men. That is unusual, because generally the hero of a journey story is very young.
There’s a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.
When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.
I’m interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.
I think you have an obligation to share what you know as a writer.
I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel responsible to tell stories that inspire readers to consider more deeply who they are.
What sustains me is to be with my family and to write.
It doesn’t matter who you are, how many awards you’ve won, how popular you are, or how much critical acclaim you’ve had.
Everybody has a world, and that world is completely hidden until we begin to inquire. As soon as we do, that entire world opens to us and yields itself. And you see how full and complex it is.
I was born in Washington State and have lived here for 42 plus years.
I think of myself as a really happy person.
Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it.
At one level you’re condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.
Fiction is socially meaningful.
My book is traditional. It runs counter to the post-modern spirit.
I have relaxed into my persona as an author, although I used to fight that.
It’s a brooding melancholy that haunts me.
I grew up in Seattle, but I always knew I wanted to leave.
I became paralyzed as an artist with writer’s block.
Post-modernism is dead because it didn’t address human needs.
I’m not an urban person.
When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you’re deathly afraid that you’re not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.
I have traveled the entire state and spent a lot of time out of doors. So I have known the landscape of the Columbia Basin for quite a while, and I have had this strong feeling about it for many years.
Time made me change. I gradually woke up to the realization that this is who I am, an author, a public figure, and I couldn’t just hide in my study, tapping away at the keyboard and pretend that I didn’t have a role to play beyond stringing words together.
My father is a practicing criminal law attorney in the Seattle area.
