Adam Haslett Quotes

It is a negative sort of achievement, she thinks, to have spent a life warding something off.

Only the luckless, the petty or the deranged [end] up in court.

Discovery is the joy.

As I see it, my job as a writer isn't to judge, but to take a reader as far inside as I can and let them dwell there.

My interest is always to get as deeply as I can into the minds and spirits of the characters and let the readers empathize or judge as they will.

Sound systems are what turn cars into escape vehicles, even if you've got nowhere to go.

...I did what most kids do when their world feels destroyed. I tried to care less about what remained...It was untrue, of course.

...I did what most kids do when their world feels destroyed. I tried to care less about what remained...This was untrue, of course.

It struck me then, for the first time, how unethical anxiety is, how it voids the reality of other people by conscripting them as palliatives for your own fear.