People worked seven days for 12-14 hours, there was no regulation of any kind - there were no trash pick-ups, there were dead horses lying in the streets - and through all of this walked our great American whirling dervish, Walt Whitman, saying 'I find it all to my taste, I find it all miraculous and strange, and yes, even beautiful',

Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham

Related Quotes

A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if he's any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world.

— Michael Cunningham

AnyBenignCertain

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

— Michael Cunningham

You have started the book with this bubble over your head that contains a cathedral full of fire - that contains a novel so vast and great and penetrating and bright and dark that it will put all other novels ever written to shame. And then, as you get towards the end, you begin to realise, no, it's just this book.

— Michael Cunningham

BeginBookBright

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write.

— Michael Cunningham

AdmitBeingBeing Honest

One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

— Michael Cunningham

lifeon-fictionwriting