Joy Williams
Joy Williams
Joy Williamsis an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 February 1944
CountryUnited States of America
almost bark crashing deck dim fading gaps gotten grey heard lay leaving moving pink save sky time toward trees wild woods
The woods were wild at nightfall. She heard dim crashing and splashes and the bark of a dog, and through the gaps in the trees was a mottled sky of fading pink and grey discs, microbes moving toward the west. She had almost gotten away but not in time and now leaving wouldn't save her. She lay down on the deck with the woods all around her.
converge
Many writers today are wanderers. There is not only an unhousedness in language - how to convey, to say nothing of converge - but an unhousedness of place.
home material
Everything is gone. And it's not so much the material things. It's just ... that's home.
beyond love
There must be something beyond love. I want to get there.
dream thinking responsible
I think the writer has to be responsible to signs and dreams. If you don't do anything with it, you lose it.
talking stranger enjoy
As you grow older, you'll find that you enjoy talking to strangers far more than to your friends.
prayer writing silence
Writers when they're writing live in a spooky, clamorous silence, a state somewhat like the advanced stages of prayer but without prayer's calming benefits.
enough can-do
Nothing the writer can do is ever enough.
beautiful horse blue
But who knows what good might come from the least of us? From the bones of old horses is made the most beautiful Prussian Blue.
grateful writing shadow
Writers end up writing stories-or rather, stories' shadows-and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough
writing faces comfort
Good writing never soothes or comforts. It is no prescription, neither is it diversionary, although it can and should enchant while it explodes in the reader's face.
today language wanderers
Many writers today are wanderers. There is not only an unhousedness in language - how to convey, to say nothing of converge - but an unhousedness of place.
inevitable irreversible
Nothing we do is inevitable, but everything we do is irreversible.
beautiful song eye
For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels-at the very least with the tongues of angels-they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes.