Joan Silber Quotes

#1. So, in the end, we were hypocrites for kindness. Both of us. Standing with my bouquet of orange blossoms, I thought: I'm happy but I'm in disguise. But probably many people feel that at their weddings.

Joan Silber

#2. Length is weight in fiction, pretty much.

Joan Silber

#3. [S]torytelling, in ancient and modern practice, is always a contemplation of the experience of time passing. A story depends on things not standing still, on the built-in condition of impermanence.

Joan Silber

#4. A story is entirely determined by what portion of time it chooses to narrate.

Joan Silber

#5. This is fictional time, where events play out and possibilities are exhausted, so that meaning can emerge.

Joan Silber

#6. You don't know what you're going to be faithful to in this world, do you? It was true I didn't have what other people had, I knew that, and yet I couldn't think of a single other life I envied - no, I couldn't - though I knew better than to try to get anyone to believe it.

Joan Silber

#7. A story is already over before we hear it. That is how the teller knows what it means.

Joan Silber

#8. If you saw through everything, it made it hard to figure out what to do with yourself.

Joan Silber

#9. Slowed time is -- or should be -- a way of pointing to what's important.

Joan Silber