Jess Walter Quotes
If a police officer arrests a mime, does he need to tell him he has the right to remain silent.
Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.
His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.
And even if they don't find what they're looking for, isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?
He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.
He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.
This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.
And if a moment exists only in one's perception anyway, then perhaps the rush of feeling he has now is THE MOMENT, and not merely its shadow.
He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.
If you come from money and you become an addict, you go to the Betty Ford Clinic, you get treatment. If you're living on the street and you're an addict, it's much harder to find your way out.
The first fiction I ever wrote was short stories. I was writing short stories in my late teens and early twenties, and I think it's how you teach yourself to write.
At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?
The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25.
You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.
I think the path to becoming a writer has become more through the novel. It's easier to get a novel published than a book of stories, obviously, especially through big publishers.
The stories tend to be what I work on when I'm stuck. Something will just pop into my head and I'll think that's more of a story.
Because I'm a novelist, I think in terms of structure. The way I keep going is through structure. It's what inspires me and pushes me through.
I've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in your life.
You probably have to trust that your work is following certain themes and certain movements, but then the rest is a kind of piecing together so that the whole becomes larger than the parts.
There was a time when self-promotion was considered so verboten, especially for authors.
He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.
A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.” Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.
I realized the structure in a collection is how they're put together. Structuring the collection became the art of it for me. Because the stories had all been written.
He found himself inhabiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.
Two kinds of people always lie about their ages: actresses and Latin American pitchers.
Among the world's evils—fascism, ethnic cleansing, environmental degradation— smoking deserves the most severe curricular attention in my kid's school.
The movie I was working on, "Cleopatra", it's about how destructive a force love can be. But maybe that's what every story is about.
And while his mother's lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant--how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.
I guess I forgot we were going out tonight.""We always go out on Fridays.""It's Thursday, Alvis.""You are so tied to routine.
