Jill McCorkle Quotes & Sayings

Building a dollhouse is a lot like writing a novel because you are God of the Universe. — Jill McCorkle

We live days and weeks and months and years with so little awareness of life. We wait for the bad things that wake us up and shock our systems. But every now and then, on the most average day, it occurs to you that this is it. This is all there is. — Jill McCorkle

The older he got, the less he believed and then the less he believed the more capable he was of believing. "Such a cool paradox." He said. — Jill McCorkle

You will never be as smart as your subconscious. — Jill McCorkle

I was with my dad 20 years ago as he was dying. I was there at the moment of his death, and I kept wondering the whole while what it must feel like from his point of view to still be there thinking, hearing all that was going on as people came and went, and life continued all around him. — Jill McCorkle

You want to feel that your reader does identify with the characters so that there's a real entry into the story - that some quality speaks to the individual. — Jill McCorkle

There is a choice to make, a chance to take. — Jill McCorkle

It's one of the most basic laws of human nature, isn't it? The more we are denied something, the more we want it. The more silence given to this or that topic, the more power. — Jill McCorkle

I like to think I put some of myself in every character. — Jill McCorkle

By limiting or denying freedom of speech and expression, we take away a lot of potential. We take away thoughts and ideas before they even have the opportunity to hatch. We build a world around negatives - you can't say, think, or do this or that. — Jill McCorkle

One day, when my son was eight, he came into the kitchen while I was cooking and said: 'You put bad words in your books, don't you?' No doubt he had overheard my mother, who often tells people who ask about my work: 'Well, you'll never find her books in the Christian bookstore.' — Jill McCorkle

Humor - I see it as a survival skill. — Jill McCorkle

Make their exits as gentle and loving as possible ... Tell them how good it will be, even if you don't believe it yourself. You're southern, you know how to do that. — Jill McCorkle

For years, I felt I was a novelist, but now I know I can write short fiction. — Jill McCorkle

By the time I sit down ready to write, I've done a lot of longhand and a lot of note collecting along the way. — Jill McCorkle

I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears open, you can't possibly live long enough to write all the novels you'll encounter.' — Jill McCorkle

The pain of losing people you love is the price of the ticket for getting to know them at all. — Jill McCorkle

I feel very protective in the first draft, when all the pieces are coming together. I work in a way that is not linear or chronological at all, even with the short story. I will just be writing bits and pieces, and then when I have all the pieces on the table, that for me is when it feels like the real work begins. — Jill McCorkle

I once had a story editor ask me not to use the word 'placenta.' I wanted to say: 'Now tell me again how you got here?' Oh, right, an angel of God placed you into the bill of the stork. — Jill McCorkle

For me, a happy ending is not everything works out just right and there is a big bow, it's more coming to a place where a person has a clear vision of his or her own life in a way that enables them to kind of throw down their crutches and walk. — Jill McCorkle

No one likes to talk about the positive parts of getting older and aging into orphanhood, how with your parents you often bury a lot of things you were never able to confront or fix or let go of. — Jill McCorkle

When she doesn't want to think about something sad or hurtful, she does what she instructed her own children and those she taught to do: Close your eyes and go somewhere safe and good. Picture something good. — Jill McCorkle

Finally she feels free - not perfect, not problem free, just free — Jill McCorkle

The simple rule: some get saved, but most don't. The choices are important before the years begin to go so very fast. — Jill McCorkle

The silver friend knows your present and the gold friend knows all of your past dirt and glories. Once in a blue moon there is someone who knows it all, someone who knows and accepts you unconditionally, someone who is there for life. — Jill McCorkle

We used to all come outside when the streetlights came on and prowl the neighborhood in a pack, a herd of kids on banana-seat bikes and minibikes. The grown-ups looked so silly framed in their living-room and kitchen windows. They complained about their days and sighed deep sighs of depression and loss. They talked about how spoiled and lucky children were these days. We will never be that way, we said, we will never say those things. — Jill McCorkle

If a nuclear disaster occurred, and you had to live out those final painful days just stretched out somewhere thinking about your life
This is who I am. This is what I love. This is what I believe
who would you want hearing your whispers? Or perhaps better: Who do you trust to hear your whispers? Whose breath do you want mingled with your own? Whose flesh still warm beside you? — Jill McCorkle

I think that marriage vows should include an escape clause that says the contract is broken if one party ups and makes a big switch in religion or politics or aesthetic taste. I mean, these shifts just aren't fair, and we need an easier way out. — Jill McCorkle

Sometimes I do feel like I write the same story again and again. And for me, I am always looking for a place with a kind of redemption. — Jill McCorkle

I am very interested in that fine line between fiction and reality and between comedy and tragedy - and pushing the line as much as possible. — Jill McCorkle

I thought that we were all like trees, flexible youths, saplings, who grow up heavy and stiff, spread seeds and get chopped down and turned into notebook paper. — Jill McCorkle

She tried to teach her children to be positive
to dream but to also do it with their feet on the ground. If you let loose that balloon, you will lose sight of it, she said. The best way to enjoy it is to hold tight to the string and plant your feet on a good solid path. — Jill McCorkle

Steve Yarbrough is a masterful storyteller-one of our finest-and Safe from the Neighbors is a masterpiece ... This is a spellbinding, powerful novel. — Jill McCorkle

I think too many people edit themselves way too soon. There's plenty of time to edit, and it is a crucial part of it all, too. — Jill McCorkle

My joy as a writer is circling around and around and down and down to find out who the real person is. — Jill McCorkle

Certainly if I were to think in terms of a field that would have required a different mode of education, I think I would have leaned in the direction of being a therapist. And without the education, or a different kind of education, I think my first choice would be a landscape architect. I love to garden. — Jill McCorkle

The first draft is all about freedom, and if loyalty is in question, it is only my loyalty to the characters and situations on the page. All the worries about where the material may have sprung from or what so-and-so might think can be dealt with later. — Jill McCorkle