I don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.
Lydia DavisThere seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.
Lydia DavisI don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.
Lydia DavisThere is something very pleasing about the principles of science and the rules of math, because they are so inevitable and so harmonious - in the abstract, anyway.
Lydia DavisTo observe the world carefully, to write a lot and often, on a schedule if necessary, to use the dictionary a lot, to look up word origins, to analyze closely the work of writers you admire, to read not only contemporaries but writers of the past, to learn at least one foreign language, to live an interesting life outside of writing.
Lydia DavisWe feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we were already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would sooner or later have thought; or what we would have thought much later if we hadnโt read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadnโt read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadnโt read it now.
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 Davis