Quotes by Julia Glass

My own life is wonderful, but if I had to live the life of someone else, Id gladly choose that of Julia Child or Dr. Seuss: two outrageously original people, each of whom fashioned an idiosyncratic wisdom, passion for life, and sense of humor into an art form that anyone and everyone could savor.

I was ridiculed in public school for being smart. A teachers pet.

Colorful garments - ball gowns, kimonos, evening pajamas - made from yards upon yards of iridescent silk or velvet. I own an unjustifiable number of such outfits and jump at the chance to wear them. Against the etiquette about which I am otherwise all too conscious, I frequently, and unrepentantly, overdress for the occasion.

I have struggled for decades now with the fear of and resistance to change - mostly in the realms of technology, transportation, and the ways people choose to communicate. If I had a theme song, it would be that lovely song Im Old-Fashioned, as sung by Ella Fitzgerald.

To me, stretching the capabilities of my imagination is a crucial aspect of writing fiction; you could think of it as a mental form of athleticism.

My first draft is always way too long my books start out with delusions of War and Peace - and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say shes a midwife rather than a surgeon.

In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when Im getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding.

“Time plays like an accordion in the way it can stretch out and compress itself in a thousand melodic ways. Months on end may pass blindingly in a quick series of chords, open-shut, together-apart; and then a single melancholy week may seem like a years pining, one long unfolding note.”