I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years while getting my masters at Georgia State. I thought I hated it at the time, but I've been back a couple of times since, and there's no place I've lived to which returning is so much like visiting a place I on...
I love New York, and I'm drawn to a certain intensity of life, but I've just never felt like I want to escape from the Midwest. A writer lives a great deal in his own head, and so one intuitively finds places where your head is more clear. New York f...
Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the facades of buildings - shelt...
I always had this childhood image in the back of my mind of this fantastic place where all the things I liked came from; Orson Welles, jazz, all that stuff. Los Angeles is one of those places where somebodies become nobodies and nobodies become someb...
My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences. I guess, in painting, it ...
Sal: The fuck is wrong with you? This ain't about money. I could give a fuck about money. You see this fucking place? I built this fucking place with my bare fucking hands. Every light socket, every piece of tile - me, with these fucking hands.
Doyle Lonnegan: I put it all on Lucky Dan; half a million dollars to win. Kid Twist: To win? I said *place*! "Place it on Lucky D-" That horse is gonna run second! Doyle Lonnegan: [There is a pause, and Lonnegan runs horrified to the betting booth] T...
Ophelia: The only thing I've got going for me, is this body, this face, and what I got up here. I don't do drugs. And I don't have a pimp. Louis Winthorpe III: This place is a dump. Ophelia: But it's cheap, it's clean and it's all mine.
The game of basketball has been everything to me. My place of refuge, place I've always gone where I needed comfort and peace. It's been the site of intense pain and the most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. It's a relationship that has evol...
Willard: Are you crazy, Goddammit? Don't you think its a little risky for some R&R? Kilgore: If I say its safe to surf this beach, Captain, then its safe to surf this beach! I mean, I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole fucking plac...
The most beautiful place in the world, is anyplace. Anyplace you can hold your head up. Anyplace you can be proud of who you are. But I though, where you love somebody a whole lot, and you know that person loves you, that's the most beautiful place i...
The ultimate act of bravery does not take place on a battlefield. It takes place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations and yes, your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of directio...
Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last i...
I work on my novels wherever I have a PC, and I have four or five places around the world where I do have a PC. These days you can just slip a little flash drive into your top pocket, fly for 12 hours, come to another place, plug it into a computer a...
For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered yet more that myself, who was to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said one of his friend, "Thou half ...
Seek for no meaning in it; it has none. What meaning is there in pain and pleasure? They are twins; that is all we know. Seek no meaning in anything you see here. Images, ideas, flashes of purpose will peer out in all our ways and deeds, but there is...
There's a lot for you to live for. Good things are definitely in your future, Leonard. I'm sure of it. You have no idea how many interesting people you'll meet after high school's over. Your life partner, your best friend, the most wonderful person y...
Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, compo...
When you aren't drinking or using drugs or spending lots of money on fancy toys or basking in the glow of fame or working all the time or eating your way through the refrigerator, being hateful and angry is a very handy shield from the truth. It lets...
I learned that, while rejection is the name of the game, I’m always going to be exactly what someone is looking for, eventually. Whether it is looks or personality, be it in the professional world or the dating world, what others have over me is ir...
But life is too short not to make a fool out of yourself from time to time. And sometimes you need to make an ass out of yourself, just to see what you are capable of doing next. Life isn’t just about pushing your limits and seeing what you’re ma...