Rebecca McClanahan Quotes

#1. A writer need not be bound by flat statement like "It was a rough sea," when verbs like tumble and roil and seethe wait to spell from her pen.

Rebecca McClanahan

#2. I fall into books the way I fall into lust - wholly, hungrily.

Rebecca McClanahan

#3. Of the five senses, smell is the one with the best memory.

Rebecca McClanahan

#4. Memory is an act of meaning-making. It collects the disparate pieces of our lives and distills them.

Rebecca McClanahan

#5. Effective metaphor does more than shed light on the two things being compared. It actually brings to the mind's eye something that has never before been seen. It's not just the marriage ceremony linking two things; it's the child born from the union.

Rebecca McClanahan

#6. To name the world in your own terms, to tell your own story, is an act of authority and power. When you write, you are saying, in effect, 'I have a voice. I have a story. This is what I have to say.'

Rebecca McClanahan

#7. Unlike art, the making of home does not stay done. Every morning, every evening, the mess awaits us. The messy, hungry, beautiful world, wanting and needing our touch.

Rebecca McClanahan