If I was writing about an academic or a more difficult person, I would use the Latinate vocabulary more, but I do think Anglo-saxon is the language of emotion.
Lydia DavisThe style developed over decades, really, but I started out writing pretty traditional stories, then became impatient. It was a writer named Russell Edson who showed me that one could write in any way at all.
Lydia DavisI don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it.
Lydia DavisYou know the pain is part of the whole thing. And it isnโt that you can say afterwards the pleasure was greater than the pain and thatโs why you would do it again. That has nothing to do with it. You canโt measure it, because the pain comes after and it lasts longer. So the question really is, Why doesnโt that pain make you say, I wonโt do it again? When the pain is so bad that you have to say that, but you donโt.
Lydia DavisWhy don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer.
Lydia DavisHeart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.
Lydia Davis