Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Barry Hannahwas an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi. Hannah was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on April 23, 1942, and grew up in Clinton, Mississippi. He wrote eight novels and five short story collections...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 April 1942
CountryUnited States of America
inspiration wife my-wife
I wake my wife up at 3 a.m. and say, "Listen to this!"
art hurt people
I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.
book writing intelligent
I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they're not. They're not out there waiting. They're not gonna use their intelligence on your book.
aunts family loved sisters uncles wonderful
My aunts told wonderful stories. Not to me, but to each other. We had a very strong family. My mother's sisters loved each other intensely. The uncles loved each other intensely.
bank dad history insurance retired successful
My dad read history, about a book a day, but only after he retired as a successful bank and insurance man.
dog heart soul
The point is to strip down, get protestant, then even more naked. Walk over scorched bricks to find your own soul. Your heart a searching dog in the rubble.
southerner
Professional Southerners sicken me.
love-you thieves might
Whoever you are, be that person with all your might. Time goes by faster than we thought. It is a thief so quiet. You must let yourself be loved and you must love, parts of you that never loved must open and love. You must announce yourself in all particulars so you can have yourself.
children parent grew
Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?
soul literature
Literature is the history of the soul.
essence labyrinth bogs
What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is... We are all overbrained and overemotioned.
writing done too-much
I distrust thought. The interior life is highly overrated. I don't like the wispy and the vague... or inductive logic in any kind of writing. I'm impatient with writers who make too much sense. The better things that I've done have come to me by instinct.
beautiful thinking two
The first two drinks were always wonderfully liberating. You think better. You're braver, and you'll say anything. If you could just hang in there with two or three, it'd be beautiful. The trouble was I couldn't.
gratitude believe writing
I do believe that as you write more and age, the arrogance and most of the vanity goes. Or it is a vanity met with vast gratitude, that you were hit by something as you stood in the way of it, that anybody is listening.