I have twin six-year-old boys. Have no mojo. The closest thing to a mojo I have is five minutes of peace.

- Darin Strauss

You get a bad review with a novel, and it hurts. But I imagine if you get a bad review with a memoir, it hurts more because you can always say, 'Well, they didn't like my characters,' but when you're the character, it's like, 'Oh, yeah, they actually didn't like me.'

- Darin Strauss

My knowledge of trains - and love before first sight, love at negative-one sight - comes from Alfred Hitchcock.

- Darin Strauss

My first book is about twins who are attached: two people who are joined and can't escape each other.

- Darin Strauss

Like all writing rules, the injunction to start with the trouble can be broken, and it should be sometimes - if there's good reason.

- Darin Strauss

It's good training for a novelist to try to discern the truth about a place after only a few glimpses of it.

- Darin Strauss

If the memoirist is borrowing narrative techniques from fiction, shouldn't the novelist borrow a few tricks from successful non-fiction?

- Darin Strauss

I've had menial jobs, and 'professional writer' isn't one of them.

- Darin Strauss

I'm very strict in my belief that non-fiction should be truthful, and fiction is for invented narratives.

- Darin Strauss

I'm really wary of self-help books.

- Darin Strauss

I suppose that, for most of us, the fascination of conjoined twins is that such people can serve as symbols.

- Darin Strauss

For the fiction students I teach, one of the most common mistakes is to start in the wrong place. Often the actual story doesn't begin until about a third of the way into their narratives. They start off instead with excessive scene-setting, metaphysical speculation, introducing nonessential dramatis personae, throat-clearing, etc.

- Darin Strauss

I guess when you write a personal story, people feel compelled to share their own stories.

- Darin Strauss

Faith is a private issue. At least, I consider it to be one.

- Darin Strauss

Even the best novels have their share of stinker lines.

- Darin Strauss

Characters stretching their legs in some calm haven generally don't make for interesting protagonists.

- Darin Strauss

All writers have their own pet commandments.

- Darin Strauss

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots.

- Darin Strauss

The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on giant bugs.

- Darin Strauss

I'm no fan of jam bands. You can take your Gov't Mule, your Phish, your Rusted Root. But Derek Trucks is a special musician - perhaps the greatest slide guitarist who ever lived.

- Darin Strauss