Nicholas Trandahl Quotes & Sayings

Whenever I read anything by Henry David Thoreau I honestly feel as though he's with me. No. More like I am with him. — Nicholas Trandahl

Henry David Thoreau is my favorite writer of all time, my literary god king, and his essay Wild Apples is my favorite thing to read. — Nicholas Trandahl

In my own book-signings, I find humility. It's always humbling when people go out of their way to come visit with me and by some of my books. — Nicholas Trandahl

Edgar Allan Poe's writings showed me perfectly that there can be such fragile beauty and purity located in darkness and sorrow. — Nicholas Trandahl

When somebody discusses my work with me and peruses a poem or two, they get to see a piece of who I am. Because when it comes to poetry, I let it all spill forth. Any other way of writing prose would be a disservice to the art of poetry. — Nicholas Trandahl

I just need to sit, think, write and read. — Nicholas Trandahl

I write fiction not for my readers and not for myself. I write fiction for the sake of those odd heroic characters that are contained therein. They are counting on me as much as I am counting on them. — Nicholas Trandahl

As long as I have other ideas and projects noted, I feel confident that they'll be alright until I get to them. And my ideas and tastes may have evolved by the time I get to them so that an idea can be discarded or expanded upon in ways that I wouldn't have thought of had I started on that project right away instead of finishing what I was currently on. It's good to give those ideas time to ripen and blossom. — Nicholas Trandahl

I have to be in a particular mindset to write poetry. I either have to be very depressed or very inspired. — Nicholas Trandahl

I feel like these characters, these places, these beings and plots, and even these inanimate objects are counting on me for survival. It's my responsibility to reveal them to the world, to show my readers the names of these things, to show them their histories and stories. — Nicholas Trandahl

Sometimes just being able to write only a few hundred words as opposed to a few thousand is just fine. As long as they're good words. — Nicholas Trandahl

Thoreau's writings feel more alive to me than any thing that I've ever read. When I read anything by Thoreau, I see his subject. I feel it. I taste it. I smell it. I feel as though he's walking beside me, showing me with gestures and soft-spoken words the marvelous natural wonders that he's written about. — Nicholas Trandahl

There are a couple of utterly important rules to writing anything, whether it's a novel, a short story or a collection of poetry. And they're really the only rules.
1: Quit talking about it and start.
2: Focus and finish it. — Nicholas Trandahl

Give me a bottle of hard cider, a bowl of Peterson Irish Oak in my Neerup pipe, and please, above all, give my Henry David Thoreau's Wild Apples. Do that and you will see a man contented. — Nicholas Trandahl

I'm a man of music as much as I am a man of words and prose. One could even possibly say that they, music and prose, are connected to a lengthy and mutually beneficial extent and that they have been of centuries or millenniums. — Nicholas Trandahl

Poetry is a niche genre, sure, but it has a way of opening people up. It opens me up. As with music and art, poetry is an essential human art and discussing its genesis, fruition and prose with somebody legitimately interested is intensely rewarding. — Nicholas Trandahl

I primarily use poetry as a purge, a self-medication device when I'm in the depths of loneliness, anxiety or in the throes of depression. When I'm lost in the darkness of mental illness, I spill forth a deluge of words and prose that are oftentimes grim, dark and depressive. And when my poems are spilled forth into one of my poetry journals, I feel a weight has been indeed been lifted from me, and my mind can rest just a bit easier. — Nicholas Trandahl

It's my opinion that only in times of utter depression or lofty peace is it appropriate to be creative. — Nicholas Trandahl