Scott McClanahan Quotes

New York exists for me. Not me for it.

We're artists. We cry out to be exploited on some level. Write a dissertation on my work. Write a biography about me.

The whole exploitation thing is funny, too. Exploitation is the nature of the world, isn't it?

There's always tons of crap music people are trying to sell us - [it's] the same way with publishers and galleries.

I think all good art is outsider art.

Most of the answers to the world could be answered with our bodies.

The only hope we have are our bodies. We're all trapped in them and we all hate them, and it's this reason why we're comic and not tragic.

Everybody is so sure about everything these days. Just look at your horrible Facebook feed on the most recent tragedy that people are commenting on.

I think a pretty good modus operandi is to believe that everything we know is wrong. The stomach will be the key to depression or consciousness or we'll realize ants are smarter than people.

I'm sure we're going to find out one day that the brain is as worthless as the appendix.

I don't think anybody does anything anymore without commenting on why they're doing it or making fun of it as they're doing it.

Only cool people care about the origin stories of why they like something, and I'm not cool.

You can write songs about your comic books and the girl or boy you sort of know and your mom and dad and it's all right there in front of you.

Fellini is a just a province kid. Rome exists for Fellini, not the other way around.

I'm shocked and surprised by people that are shocked and surprised that certain things in life are made up or not as true as you might believe them to be.

There was a lot of tension between my dad and his mother and brothers. Sometimes when I was over there, I remember thinking, "I don't want to get shot."

It's weird. People want you to know that they write. They want you to know they're a musician, rather than making music or making stories. It's the strangest thing.

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face.

I guess the things I have always loved are from people who were just being themselves. They were doing these things because they couldn't do it any other way. It was for them.

So much of our culture is bought and manufactured - not to say great art can't come out of that. Some art is really amazing that is manufactured and sold, like action movies and stuff.

The things that I have loved have always been those extremes where there has been some kind of apocalypse in the person's life, and they come out unscathed or scathed.

It's like that where these little anecdotes come through, and I guess that's what I like about books like that [He Stopped Loving Her Today]. Fiction now is so experiential.

We like something because someone else liked it.

I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken.

Samuel Clemens isn't Mark Twain. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. He doesn't become the thing until he creates himself.

Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

I just realized that I never look at a painting and ask, 'Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?' It’s just a painting.

I never look at a painting and ask, "Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?" It's just a painting.