Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is an American author and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is a senior lecturer of creative writing at Yale University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth6 November 1952
CountryUnited States of America
Michael Cunningham quotes about
bottomless good interest
and didn't feel especially good at it but did feel a kind of bottomless interest in the process, which has never ceased.
creation dogged number powerful various walt
Like any powerful creation, can be used in a number of ways... in this book, which chronicles various dissolutions and breakages, there is still Walt Whitman, the dogged optimist.
equivalent fabulous form free human life nearest seemed simply star
A movie star seemed simply like the nearest equivalent we've got, we who live blessedly free of a monarchy, to that sense of the human form exalted, the life made fabulous simply by who and what the person is.
days dead great horses lying miraculous people regulation saying seven streets trash walked walt worked
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',
difference entitled equally great impulse perfect remove trying
The only difference was one of them was trying to make a perfect cake and one of them was trying to write a great book. But if we remove that from the equation, it's the same impulse and they are equally entitled to their ecstasies and their despair.
world
There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be.
stories
we become the stories we tell ourselves
sensations
She is overtaken by a sensation of unbeing. There is no other word for it.
hands raw-materials materials
This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.
party sick faces
I don't know if I can face this. You know. The party and the ceremony, and then the hour after that, and the hour after that." "You don't have to go to the party. You don't have to go to the ceremony. You don't have to do anything at all." "But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another. I'm so sick.
stars memories heart
He wanted to tell her that he was inspired and vigilant and recklessly alone, that his body contained his unsteady heart and something else, something he felt but could not describe: porous and spiky, shifting with flecks of thought, with urge and memory; salted with brightness, flickerings of white and green and pale gold; something that loved stars because it was made of the same substance.
should-have fiction delight
Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear.
ink-and-paper paper ink
Sure, go ahead, simulate life, using only ink and paper.
love-and-marriage theory
I have no useful theories about love and marriage.