Quotes from Alan Shapiro

All works of nonfiction, or memoir, have to first and foremost be art before they can be true. They have to be artful first before they can be truthful... If you emphasize the truth-telling at the expense of art, nobody is going to be interested in it. And if you sacrifice truth in the name of art, you risk triviality. There's a constant balance between those two.

At first the wave of Persia's fleet rolled firm, but next, as our ships jammed into the narrows and no one could help any other and our own bronze teeth bit into our own strakes, whole oarbanks shattered.

Sweetness and Night Long past indignant at the loss of dignity, almost amused by it, but not, every moment of the day a strip search in public, every breath a punishment for what? she couldn't say, which makes her no less penitent, sitting forward, head bowed, in the chair she can't get out of without help, which is itself another punishment,