Nicholas Trandahl Quotes

I'm a man of music as much as I am a man of words and prose. One could even possibly say that they, music and prose, are connected to a lengthy and mutually beneficial extent and that they have been of centuries or millenniums.

Henry David Thoreau is my favorite writer of all time, my literary god king, and his essay Wild Apples is my favorite thing to read.

It's my opinion that only in times of utter depression or lofty peace is it appropriate to be creative.

I just need to sit, think, write and read.

I have to be in a particular mindset to write poetry. I either have to be very depressed or very inspired.

When somebody discusses my work with me and peruses a poem or two, they get to see a piece of who I am. Because when it comes to poetry, I let it all spill forth. Any other way of writing prose would be a disservice to the art of poetry.

Whenever I read anything by Henry David Thoreau I honestly feel as though he's with me. No. More like I am with him.

I write fiction not for my readers and not for myself. I write fiction for the sake of those odd heroic characters that are contained therein. They are counting on me as much as I am counting on them.

Thoreau's writings feel more alive to me than any thing that I've ever read. When I read anything by Thoreau, I see his subject. I feel it. I taste it. I smell it. I feel as though he's walking beside me, showing me with gestures and soft-spoken words the marvelous natural wonders that he's written about.

In my own book-signings, I find humility. It's always humbling when people go out of their way to come visit with me and by some of my books.

Edgar Allan Poe's writings showed me perfectly that there can be such fragile beauty and purity located in darkness and sorrow.

There are a couple of utterly important rules to writing anything, whether it's a novel, a short story or a collection of poetry. And they're really the only rules.
1: Quit talking about it and start.
2: Focus and finish it.

I feel like these characters, these places, these beings and plots, and even these inanimate objects are counting on me for survival. It's my responsibility to reveal them to the world, to show my readers the names of these things, to show them their histories and stories.

Sometimes just being able to write only a few hundred words as opposed to a few thousand is just fine. As long as they're good words.