Quinn’s Motivations

One of the surprising things about your “novels of ideas” is that they work so well just as novels. I’ve heard people describe them as page turners.

Categories: I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters|Tags: Quinn's Motivations, Writing and Publishing|

The premise of your graphic novel The Man Who Grew Young is that the forward flow of time in the universe has come to the end of its string and is “rewinding” itself like a yo-yo.
Was it difficult to write a book in which all the action is running backwards?

Categories: I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters|Tags: Quinn's Motivations, Writing and Publishing|

Parables and dialogue play a big role in your novels (more so than any modern writer I know of). Can you explain why?

Categories: I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters, I Need Some Clarification|Tags: Education, Quinn's Motivations, Writing and Publishing|

Mr.Quinn I recently read Ishmael for a program on Civilization and History I am currently enrolled in and thoroughly enjoyed it; however I am aware that others are very critical of it.
Some critics claim that the kind and gentle warning delivered in Ishmael is actually a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In fact, some go as far as claiming it to be subversive Nazi propaganda.
What would you say to these critics if given the chance?

Categories: I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters|Tags: Ishmael, Quinn's Motivations|

Unfortunately, in my pursuit of a non-economical version of success, I don’t find myself with really any extra money I can spend on books.
So when I shoplift copies of Ishmael and The Story of Bfrom corporate bookstores and use them to spread the message, am I taking any food off your plate?

Categories: I Have a Question On a Specific Subject, I'd Like Some Advice|Tags: Beyond Civilization, Political Correctness, Quinn's Motivations|

Though I certainly enjoyed After Dachau, The Man Who Grew Young, and The Holy, I miss reading new insights from you every once in a while about saving the world. Your last book directly addressing that subject, Beyond Civilization, was published about five years ago.
The most recent of your speeches posted to this site is from about 2 1/2 years ago. Do you think you will have anything new to say about saving the world in the future, either in a book or shorter format?

Categories: I Have a Question On a Specific Subject|Tags: Evolution, Quinn's Motivations, Writing and Publishing|

The Man Who Grew Young and Fritz Lieber’s story “The Man Who Never Grew Young” are remarkably similar. On the first reading of Quinn’s graphic novel I thought that I was reading a fleshed out version of Lieber’s narrative.
Are the two estates aware of the existence of the other story?

Categories: I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters, I Need Some Clarification|Tags: Quinn's Motivations, Writing and Publishing|

Daniel, I’ve got a million questions for you . . . such as why you mentioned in Ishmael and The Story of B jesus’ sermon on the mount(“behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not nor do they reap…”), yet then you include him with the “salvationists”? In the bible (read post-Ishmael) jesus describes religious leaders as “the blind leading the blind, and when the blind follow the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
It just seems to me that the ideas of jesus were used by religions/salvationists to serve their own needs and all the while mother culture tells us that salvation and jesus are one and the same.
Along the biblical theme Why no mention of john the “B”aptist? I understand now why jesus wished to be “baptised” by john the B, for when asked by the scribes who he was, john the B replies, “I am he who cries from wilderness.”
And thanks for going over the “great fall.” Powerful story i had never “saw” before.
But my real question is Have you ever realized how similar the concepts of Ishmael are to the music of the doors? “Cancel my subscription to the resurrection, send my credentials to the house of detention, i’ve got some friends inside… what have they done to the earth? what have they done to our fair sister? ravaged and plundered and returned bitter, stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn and tied her with fences and dragged her down, i hear a very gentle sound we want the world and we want it NOW!”
I hear parallels between Ishmael and much of the doors music. Is this a question you’ve been asked? Am i simply “seeing” Ishmael in everything?

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While reading After Dachau I began to wonder how the novel related to the stories of Ishmael, as I’d heard it was a distant cousin of the trilogy. Eventually I gave up and just enjoyed the story.
But, about a day after I finished, I realized that After Dachau was a long form, detailed example of how easily the Great Forgetting talked about in the trilogy could have come to be.
Was this one of the intentions of the story, or am I reading too much into it? Alternatively, am I just dense in believing my discovery to be a revelation as opposed to an obvious conclusion?

Categories: I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters|Tags: Leavers & Takers, Quinn's Motivations|

Was there a difference for you in the writing process when you wrote Dreamer versus writing something like The Holy or After Dachau?
There are books like your Dreamer and all the many, many Stephen King and Peter Straub mass market paperbacks that you find on the shelves and then there are books like After Dachau and The Holy—books that it seems like the author put more of himself into, that were more personal to the author.
Is there a difference in the writing process when you’re imagining up things for a novel like Dreamer and your more recent fiction, which seems like a different kind of thing altogether?

Categories: I Have a Question About Daniel Quinn, I Have a Question About the Books/the Characters|Tags: Quinn's Motivations, Writing and Publishing|