Dani Shapiro
Dani Shapiro
Daneile Joyce "Dani" Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 April 1962
CountryUnited States of America
fluent orthodox spoke thirteen until
One of the stranger things about me is that I was raised as an Orthodox Jew. I went to a yeshiva until I was thirteen years old and spoke fluent Hebrew.
excitement family heading hill house occasional save top
I live with my family on the top of a hill in the country, and during the days, my house is quiet, save for the occasional excitement of the FedEx truck heading up the driveway. I write.
fallen legs moved
Sometimes when I'm at my desk, I'll realize that I have contorted myself completely, and I haven't moved for hours, and that my legs have fallen asleep. I am elsewhere, not in my body, not in the room, not in my house.
learn time
With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
dull hiding inside
When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.
beautiful decision parent
My parents made the decision never to focus on my looks, and I had no sense of myself as beautiful.
running haunting theme
I started realising that the themes running through all of my novels were really haunting and obsessing me about my own life.
pain heartache protect
We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache.
rubies links vaults
In every generation there is a vault-keeper, one who guards the links fiercely and knows they are more precious than rubies.
running teacher writing
If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it.
moving commitment writing
It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.
color sick grace
Let me tell you something about hypochondria: It's a pernicious, undermining little demon. It won't kill you, but it will sap the color from your life so that in the loveliest moments, the moments of grace, you are hit with that whisper in your ear that takes it all away. I'm sick, I'm dying - I just don't know it yet.
trying things-change moments
Everything changes. The more I try to hold on to the moment, the more it slips through my fingers.
track feelings clue
I’ve discovered that my best work comes from the uncomfortable but fruitful feeling of not having a clue – of being worried, secretly afraid, even convinced that I’m on the wrong track.