Literary Birthday – 20 July – Alistair MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod was born 20 July 1936, and died 20 April 2014.

Alistair MacLeod Quotes

1. I write a single sentence at a time, and then I read it aloud.
2. I like to think that I am telling a story rather than writing it.
3. No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived.
4. There is a kind of belief among my students that things that are true are interesting. But most things that are true are not interesting. Four pages describing how I got up and brushed my teeth in the morning would kill you.
5. If people aren’t creating literature, there would be nothing for people to criticise.
6. Today there is a division between those who write about literature and those who create it. I, obviously, don’t think that should be there.
7. Measure twice; cut once.

Alistair MacLeod was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and academic. His 1999 novel No Great Mischief was voted Atlantic Canada’s greatest book of all time.

Source for image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alistair_MacLeod_reading_at_Cape_Breton_University_(cropped).jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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