T.C. Boyle Quotes

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First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or smell or taste, you have something.

T.C. Boyle

Dream, Heart, Smell

54 Copy quote
There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if there were no exceptions, no sunny days, no acts of random kindness.

T.C. Boyle

Kindness, Would Be, May

T.C. Boyle (1996). “The Tortilla Curtain”, p.147, Penguin

27 Copy quote
Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain.

T.C. Boyle

Pain, Pleasure, Mates

T.C. Boyle (2001). “A Friend of the Earth”, p.21, Penguin

30 Copy quote
I'm sad that there no more mysterious places in the world.

T.C. Boyle

World, Mysterious, I'm Sad

Source: www.motherjones.com

5 Copy quote
I'm always trying to do something different and trying to keep myself amused.

T.C. Boyle

Always Trying, Trying, Different

Source: www.motherjones.com

8 Copy quote
We live in a cluttered culture, a culture of information in which even our computers can't tell us what's worth knowing and what is merely cultural scrap. In such a society, we don't have the experience of contemplative space, of the time or mood to engage a book of poetry or even read a novel. Who can achieve the unconscious-conscious state of the reader when everything is stimulation, everything is movement and information?

T.C. Boyle

Book, Knowing, Space

19 Copy quote
Writing is a channeling of an individual experience; so is reading. That's what's so exciting about this art form - it's interactive.

T.C. Boyle

Art, Reading, Writing

Source: therumpus.net

6 Copy quote
If I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean that's what the best art is supposed to do.

T.C. Boyle

Art, Jobs, Mean

Source: www.motherjones.com

5 Copy quote
The hardest part is always the middle of anything because at that point, on some unconscious level, you have to figure out what it's about and why you're doing it and what it means. You don't know that in the beginning.

T.C. Boyle

Mean, Levels, Figures

Source: therumpus.net

7 Copy quote
I have an idea and a first line -- and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I’m going to say, or where it’s going. I have some idea of how long it’s going to be -- but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That’s the intrigue of doing it -- it’s a process of discovery. You get to discover what you’re going to say and what it’s going to mean.

T.C. Boyle

Mean, Discovery, Ideas

13 Copy quote
Basically for me a story can be anything. Anything you tell me, anything I read in the newspaper, in any mode. I don't have any restrictions.

T.C. Boyle

Stories, Newspapers, Restriction

Source: www.pbs.org

4 Copy quote
The professorial dictum has always been to write what you know, but I say write what you don't know and find something out. And it works.

T.C. Boyle

Writing, Knows

T.C. Boyle (2013). “T.C. Boyle Stories II: The Collected Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle”, p.16, Penguin

12 Copy quote
I always listen to music while I'm working and I always read aloud to my wife. I love to read aloud to an audience because there's a cadence and a beat. There's a music to the language that's very important to me.

T.C. Boyle

Wife, Important, Cadence

Source: therumpus.net

5 Copy quote
I'm extremely worried. I'm worried about the survival of our species, worried about what we're doing, worried about being Americans, worried about depletion of resources. On the other hand, we are trying. We are trying to understand our impact on the environment.

T.C. Boyle

Impact, Hands, Survival

Source: www.motherjones.com

11 Copy quote
What I'm doing is exploring things. This is why I'm a fiction writer rather than an essayist or a politician or whatever. I just gather material and find a scenario, and see where it takes me. I don't have a plan.

T.C. Boyle

Fiction, Politician, Take Me

Source: www.motherjones.com

6 Copy quote
Everything we do is escapism, because we'll all be dead and everything we do is completely meaningless. Why brush your teeth? Why not be in the park with the bums passing a short dog? Why pay taxes, why get educated? Of course literature is an escape. You have to fill the hours.

T.C. Boyle

Dog, Teeth, Why Not

Source: therumpus.net

10 Copy quote
Sometimes, when she's out here alone, she can feel the pulse of something bigger, as if all things animate were beating in unison, a glory and a connection that sweeps her out of herself, out of her consciousness, so that nothing has a name, not in Latin, not in English, not in any known language.

T.C. Boyle

Latin, Names, Pulse

T.C. Boyle (2012). “When the Killing's Done”, p.101, A&C Black

13 Copy quote
But then, that's the beauty of writing stories-each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there's no feeling like it.

T.C. Boyle

Writing, Journey, Feelings

13 Copy quote
I go around with my books so much and I love to perform on stage, to remind everybody that the lights are off, the phones are off, and for this hour, it's going to be like your mother reading to you. We're going to remember why we love stories. I think that gets lost in over-intellectualizing.

T.C. Boyle

Mother, Book, Reading

Source: therumpus.net

11 Copy quote
The reason we love nature is because it's fascinating and we love all the creatures, but if you watch any nature film, there's always a lesson: "the creatures are all dying and life sucks." The same is true of literature.

T.C. Boyle

Life Sucks, Dying, Watches

Source: therumpus.net

8 Copy quote
I'm a product of state schools. I had a working-class family. We had no books. I was the first to go to college. But I didn't really think about it, or about making money. I was just going to be an artist, and I've been fortunate. I've never had to work for anybody nor have I had to write for money. Maybe that's another reason that I've been able to be productive. I haven't had to use my writing to make a living.

T.C. Boyle

Book, Writing, School

Source: therumpus.net

4 Copy quote
I've always been a huge fan of theatre and performance. The idea of just the human voice and just this night. Live music is the same. They're doing it for you right now. It's an amazing thing. And if you perform a story properly, it can be a transporting, too.

T.C. Boyle

Night, Ideas, Voice

Source: therumpus.net

7 Copy quote
We are animals and we are made in this way and this is how we behave. I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it.

T.C. Boyle

Animal, Impact, Trying

Source: www.motherjones.com

5 Copy quote
Work ethic and this determination is all part of escaping the depressive side. Of course I'm manic depressive, maybe not to the degree that Exley was, but I think all writers are. There are highs and lows. Look at David Foster Wallace.

T.C. Boyle

Determination, Thinking, Escaping

Source: therumpus.net

9 Copy quote
Criticism can be wonderful, especially in making connections in an interpretive way. But by applying theories randomly, it's an interesting exercise, but I don't think it illuminates the literature.

T.C. Boyle

Exercise, Thinking, Interesting

Source: therumpus.net

8 Copy quote

Latest quotes from interviews

"I don't think we need a critic to negotiate with the audience. People say, "Who are you writing for?" I'm writing for myself but my audience is anybody who knows how to read. I think a story should engage anybody who knows how to read. And I hope that my stories do, maybe on a different level for more sophisticated readers than, say, a high school kid, but still a story has got to grab you. That's why we read it."

- T.C. Boyle,

therumpus.net, added Jan 19, 2016

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