“All of the little entries in 'The Cows' were written in an irregular w...” — Lydia Davis Quote

“All of the little entries in 'The Cows' were written in an irregular way. There might be one or two done one day, and then two weeks might go by or four weeks, and then they were put in an order or sequence.”

“I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek.”

“I think the close work I do as a translator pays off in my writing - I'm always searching for multiple ways to say things.”

“I live in Wellington now but I love going back to the farm where all you can hear are the cows or the sea crashing in about a kilometre away. Our uncle's farm is on the beach and we are one up from that towards the mountain.”

“In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.”

“I could make up characters till the cows came home. Plot's what hard. Very hard.”