I think there's much more privileging of the new in art. I think people want to think they privilege the new in writing, but I agree with Virginia Woolf. She wrote a great essay called "Craftsmanship" about how difficult it is to use new words. It's really hard, but you see them coming in because obviously, if you're going to write... I mean, even to write "cell phone" in a novel - it's so boring.
Lynne TillmanI subject my sentences and the words to a kind of Grand Inquisition. I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous. And to find what I think is the most wonderful language to make a beautiful sentence. Not beautiful in the sense of "oh it's flowy" but in the sense that it really does what it's supposed to do, it what I want it to say.
Lynne TillmanI still do believe that form and content are very much related. I think throwing away some of the rule books on that is a good thing.
Lynne TillmanMy friends and I sometimes laugh at each other that there is so much maintenance of a body. I paid no attention when I was younger.
Lynne TillmanI think it's true that unless human beings experience something, they simply don't understand what people are going through.
Lynne TillmanI'd studied English literature and American history, but the English literature, which I thought was going to be helpful to me in an immediate way, was the opposite. So I had to un-think a lot of things and move out of my own head, and I learned a lot. It was like graduate school, but an un-graduate school or an un-school.
Lynne Tillman