Quotes by Tom Perrotta

About Tom Perrotta:

Thomas R. Perrotta is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election (1998) and Little Children (2004), both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films. Perrotta co-wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film version of Little Children with Todd Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also known for his novel The Leftovers (2011), which has been adapted into a TV series on HBO.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

Tom Perrotta

I'm not sure that it's possible to write a novel about people who don't transgress or stumble, people who don't surprise themselves with the things they do, people who can explain all their actions with perfect logical consistency. At least it's not ...

Tom Perrotta

I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.

Tom Perrotta

I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

Tom Perrotta

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

Tom Perrotta

My wife and I left New York when she got pregnant - we just thought it would be really hard to stay in the city.

Tom Perrotta

I did a lot of reading of the Bible and became fascinated with the idea of the Rapture. It's pretty wild. I hadn't heard of it until I was in college.

Tom Perrotta

As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.

Tom Perrotta

I was also known as Frodo because I was an early adopter of 'The Lord of the Rings.'

Tom Perrotta

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

Tom Perrotta

I was a garbage man in New Jersey in summers during college at Yale. Everybody else got to go to Switzerland and I got to go to the dump.

Tom Perrotta

I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make the...

Tom Perrotta

My mythic version of America is very much about parents and children, and in my experience, the suburban setting is where that particular drama plays out. Which isn't to say that there aren't parents and children in cities or on farms. I just don't k...

Tom Perrotta

I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love.

Tom Perrotta

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.

Tom Perrotta

I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote st...

Tom Perrotta

I no longer believe that just about everything is funny, if viewed from the proper angle.

Tom Perrotta

A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They ask...

Tom Perrotta

It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.

Tom Perrotta

My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.

Tom Perrotta

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.

Tom Perrotta

Author Bio

  • NameTom Perrotta
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist and screenwriter
  • BornAugust 13, 1961
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Screenwriter; Novelist