Geoff Dyer Quotes

Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

The ideal is to feel at home anywhere, everywhere.

One's happiness is very largely a question of state of mind rather than the world you are looking at.

Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.

To be interested in something is to be involved in what is essentially a stressful relationship with that thing, to suffer anxiety on its behalf.

All the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge.

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable: that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.

When you are lonely, writing can keep you company. It is also a form of self-compensation, a way of making up for things—as opposed to making things up—that did not quite happen.

Quite often, ambition operates on a level of irritation. Not even jealousy, just irritation.

If you help them (the crew) create good memories, they'll forget all the bad stuff

I guess that as life is speeded up and our capacity for concentration is being nibbled away at by all the obvious things, that leads us actually to be more susceptible to boredom.

Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance.

I always like to be in the presence of people who are good at and love their jobs, Irrespective of their jobs.

I've never really liked L.A., because of its sprawl.

It's this thing that's going on all the time - aging. Paul Auster quotes the poet George Opren on growing old: "What a strange thing to happen to a little boy." Which I think is so profound.

For so long I didn't have any kind of readership at all - I'd get published, but not read - the idea of writing for an audience is so anathema to me, it's never bothered me.

Each of my book arrives at a form and a style that is appropriate to the subject.

The process of book writing for me is entirely one of trial and error.

There's something about New York. You can get a nice feeling of belonging as a writer here. It's probably the best city on Earth like that. I miss the wisecracking of New York.

The one thing that you can say about the new Cabinet Donald Trump is putting together. That seems to be one of the coherent themes. They're very, very skeptical about Iran.

I've never been much drawn towards satire of any kind. I don't like that style whereby you kind of stitch people up. But the deeper thing is that I just find these people so impressive and admirable.

I like these nonfiction books where everything that is interesting about them is lost in that catch-all description of their "about"-ness.

Foreign governments are going to be poring through all these Donald Trump tweets looking for - to try and discern what it means for foreign policy.

I don't like my books being defined by their "about"-ness. So now the subtitle has just become a kind of strap-line on the cover.

Like most writers I spend a lot of my time sort of thinking, "It's such agony, I can't do it."

It doesn't require much thought for one to realise that any travel book worthy of the name has to be a departure from the standard idea of the form.

The person doing the learning is the person writing the book as much as the person reading it.

I'm incredibly competitive in all sports in a way that is so mystifying to my wife because she grew up playing the violin and piano. I've always been like that.

He was the subject of a little respectful ribbing. But he was, of course, the captain, which meant he had to do lots of the ribbing himself.

There was something very American about this ability to dwell constantly in the realm of the improvable superlative.

You know that feeling when you first arrive in a new city? However tired you are, however shattered by the flight, you are impatient to get out and sample the streets, the life, the action.

The discovery in art is often gradual, a process of minor discoveries riddled with uncertainties and the potential for making that which is discovered vanish before your eyes, like a mirage.