41 Geoff Dyer Quotes for You to Enjoy

Geoff Dyer

English Writer

Born: Jun 5, 1958

About Book Me Think Writing You

Related authors: Arthur C. Clarke D. H. Lawrence Douglas Adams Gilbert K. Chesterton John Ruskin Ricky Gervais Rudyard Kipling Thomas Paine

I think I can recognize when a piece is at a state of completion. Geoff Dyer

Think State Completion Recognize Piece

There's one profound difference between secular and religious pilgrimages. It's inconceivable that a Muslim would feel a sense of anticlimax when reaching Mecca. But for a secular pilgrim, the potential for disappointment is always there. Geoff Dyer

Disappointment Secular Sense Muslim Would Religious Potential Feel Between Reaching Pilgrim Always Difference Mecca Inconceivable Profound

People never read my books for the quality of the documentary value. Geoff Dyer

Quality People Value Books Never Documentary Read

I don't read 'genre' fiction if that means novels with lots of killing and shooting. Even Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country for Old Men' seemed pretty childish in that regard. Geoff Dyer

Old Men Country Childish No Country Pretty Seemed Genre Read Lots Shooting Fiction Regard McCarthy Old Men Means Even Novels

I feel that form determines how readers read a book and how they judge it. Geoff Dyer

Book Judge Determines Feel Read Readers How Form

I remember being interviewed about my first novel, 'The Colour of Memory.' They kept using the expression 'your first novel,' and I said, 'No, I object to that phrase, because this is it for me.' Geoff Dyer

Me Memory Remember First Phrase Object About Colour Because Said Being Your Using Novel Expression Kept

While writing, I'm always so happy in the middle of a book or finishing a book and really hate starting them, so I often think, 'I wish I had a really big book to write to which I could devote seven years of my life.' Geoff Dyer

Life Happy Book Hate Writing My Life Wish Big Think Seven Finishing Could Write Had Devote Always Years Often Middle Which While Them Really Starting

I first got a sense of that idea of nodality - but I didn't use the word back then - with 'The Missing of the Somme': that sense of a particular place in a landscape or on a map having some kind of tremendous power to draw us to itself... that made me conscious, and since then, really, it has been an abiding concern of mine. Geoff Dyer

Me Word Made Power First Sense Tremendous Back Mine Draw Has-Been Kind Abide Some Having Idea Since Missing Particular Concern Got Been Itself Place Then Us Really Landscape Use Map Conscious

Stories don't interest me. Geoff Dyer

Me Stories Interest

I think I do have a sort of terrible propensity for boredom and for being bored, even though I am absolutely of the opinion that one shouldn't be bored and that there is no excuse for it and that it is a personal failing. Geoff Dyer

Think Though Bored Boredom No Excuse Propensity Absolutely Failing Excuse Terrible Sort Opinion Am Personal Being Even

Earnest people are always a bit on the thick side in my experience. Geoff Dyer

Experience People Earnest Side Bit Always Thick

It's funny, because people always say when they meet me, having read me - or they read me, having met me - that they are struck by how the tone is pretty similar, in real life and in the books. Geoff Dyer

Life Funny Me People Met Real Life Meet Books Say Pretty Similar Struck Having Read Because Always How Real Tone

My reading of serious books about serious music is seriously compromised by the way that I can't understand any musical theory. Any mentions of D major or C minor are meaningless to me. Geoff Dyer

Music Me Seriously Reading Books Musical Way Minor About Compromised Major Understand Any Meaningless Theory Serious

I've always had this belief that you want to write about universal truths. Geoff Dyer

You About Write Had Always Truths Want Belief Universal

When I'm writing, quite often I start having a good time when I see there's a chance to make myself look like a real jerk. I start chuckling and having an interesting, rather than a boring, time. Geoff Dyer

Sharing a room with one person is worse than sharing with six, and sharing with six is in some ways worse than sharing with sixty. Geoff Dyer

Worse Ways Some Sharing Than Person Six Sixty Room

As soon as I hear that there's something to get used to, I know that I won't; I sort of pledge myself to not getting used to it. Geoff Dyer

Myself Pledge Something Soon Know Sort Hear Get Getting Used

One of the great privileges of my life was growing up in a house without books. Geoff Dyer

Life Great My Life Books House Without Up Privileges Growing Growing Up

I'll be writing essays long after I've stopped writing fiction. There is this unusually broad range in the non-fiction, but if you look at what I'm capable of as a novelist, I'm more limited. Geoff Dyer

You Writing Long Broad Range More Look Non-Fiction Unusually Limited Essays Stopped Fiction After Capable Novelist

The only thing that changes in my novels are the locations. Geoff Dyer

Changes Locations Only The Only Thing Novels Thing

My evangelical phase about Burning Man is well and truly in the past. Geoff Dyer

Man Past About Well Truly Burning In The Past Evangelical Phase

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