Nicole Krauss Quotes

(What kinds of books bring you the most reading pleasure these days?) NK: Novels that arrive at their coherence in unusual and elegant ways. That stretch form only to satisfy the book’s mysterious inner command. I love when I feel that both the author and I are surprised at where we find ourselves.

Everything is an old story, even what we think of as the "self" is just a narrative that our parents began telling when we were born, of which we take up authorship.

Years of writing novels in an instinctive, improvisatory way — without a plan, let alone a destination — taught me something about the value of sustaining uncertainty. Of asking questions, rather than pursuing answers. About the discoveries, epiphanies, and surprises one arrives at in this way, and the wonder that follows. After a while, it begins to move from a practice in one's writing and reading to a practice in one's own life, I think.

There is little that matters more to me than my freedom and independence, artistic and otherwise. But I accept that once a book is put out into the world, it will be read, interpreted, and used by its readers as they see fit. I can agree or disagree, but by then the book is no longer mine; it's been given away to anyone else who cares to read it and invest themselves in it.

All novels are, in their way, an act of resistance, since they insist on the importance and uniqueness of the individual life, and refuse to give in to the mass generalities on which governments and economies depend.