47 Walter Kirn Quotes for You to Enjoy

Walter Kirn

American Novelist

Born: Aug 3, 1962

Life Me People Time Writing You

Related authors: Elie Wiesel Ernest Hemingway H. P. Lovecraft James Baldwin John Updike Leo Rosten Nathaniel Hawthorne Richard Bach

What is it in people, or just in people like me, that would rather let a lie go by, would rather wish it away or minimize it, than point it out and cause the liar embarrassment? Walter Kirn

Me Lie People Liar Cause Wish Embarrassment Minimize Out Would Rather Point Like Go Than Just Away

I love reference books, especially collections of memorable quotations, world almanacs, and atlases. Facts to me are like candy or popcorn, small, tasty delights, and I like to gorge on them now and then. Walter Kirn

Love Me World Books Collections Memorable Small Delights Facts Like Reference Tasty Candy Quotations Them Then Popcorn Now Now And Then

A sociopath doesn't warm up their environment, doesn't make it cozy. They don't have to; when they're not performing, when they're not manipulating, when they're all alone, there's nothing. Walter Kirn

Alone Nothing Environment Performing Make Up Cozy Manipulating Warm

Realize that the game of life is the game of, to some extent, being taken advantage of by people who make a science of it. Whether they are in government or personal life or in business, they're everywhere. Walter Kirn

Life Government Game Business Science People Personal Life Everywhere Some Taken Advantage Make Personal Being Whether Realize Who Extent

It's no accident that most self-help groups use 'anonymous' in their names; to Americans, the first step toward redemption is a ritual wiping out of the self, followed by the construction of a new one. Walter Kirn

Cross the wrong state border with your gun, or wake up one morning to new legislation or a new presidential executive order, and suddenly you're the bad guy, not the good guy. No wonder some gun owners seem so touchy; they feel, at some level, like criminals in waiting. Walter Kirn

Good Morning You Waiting Wake Up Gun State Presidential Criminals One Morning Bad Border Some Bad Guy Cross Seem Guy Touchy No Wonder Wrong Feel New Like Executive Wake Up Wonder Owners Legislation Order Your Suddenly Level Good Guy

My mother used to push 'Wuthering Heights' on me as a boy, and I sensed from her breathy description of the story that it would make me laugh. I have no plans to find out if this is true. Walter Kirn

Me Mother Heights Laugh Out Would Find Push True Make Make Me Laugh Boy Sensed Story Used Plans Description Her

I review books as a day job, and through the years I've come to view the contemporary memoir as, almost always, a saga of victimization, sometimes by others, sometimes by the self, and sometimes by illness or misfortune, leading, like clockwork, to healing and redemption. Walter Kirn

Day Healing Sometimes Job Others Books Memoir Through Misfortune Self Day Job Almost Leading Come Like Contemporary Redemption Saga Always Years Review Clockwork Victimization View Illness

Literary dementia seems dated now, but there was a time when a month in the funny farm was as de rigueur for budding writers as an M.F.A. is now. To be sent away was a badge of honor; to undergo electroshock, a glorious martyrdom. Walter Kirn

Funny Time Honor Glorious Farm Month Seems Martyrdom Dated Writers Badge Budding Dementia Undergo Literary Sent Now Away

The success that Americans are said to worship is success of a specific sort: accomplished not through hard work, primarily, but through the ingenious angle, the big break. Sit down at a lunch counter, stand back up a star. Invest in a new issue and watch it soar. Split a single atom, win a war. Walter Kirn

Success Work War Hard Work Win Single Big Sit Down Lunch Back Back Up Worship Atom Angle Through Invest Split Counter Primarily New Sort Big Break Said Issue Accomplished Up American Break Soar Ingenious Stand Hard Star Specific Watch

Ask Jeeves! Who ever used that thing? College freshmen to find out who Goethe was - that's it. Walter Kirn

College Out Find Freshmen Goethe Ask Used Who Ever Thing

I grew up in a little town in Minnesota, 500 people. I went out to Princeton, and I wasn't very well-accepted out there by the fancy folks of Princeton University, I felt. I came away bruised and feeling rejected. Walter Kirn

People Feeling Princeton Out Minnesota Folks Bruised Town Felt Came Up Very Grew Fancy Little Little Town Away Rejected University

There are two sides to me. One is the writer. That's a savage person who looks at everything as a story and, you know, wants to use real life in his books. The other part is the Midwesterner, who, you know, wants to say nice things about people and be polite. Walter Kirn

Life Savage Me You People Real Life Nice Other Sides Everything Books Say About Writer Part Know Looks Polite Real His Person Wants Story Use Who Nice Things Things Two

I studied English at Princeton in the early eighties in what I consider a period of high obscurity. Professors and students ran around discussing the work of critics and philosophers that I doubt they'd read or understood. Walter Kirn

When we have a favorite writer, it's always the places where they grew up, lived, worked, and that they recreated on the page that we most want to visit and commune with. Faulkner's Mississippi, Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, etc. The mind of the reader longs to be somewhere, not just anywhere, and certainly not nowhere. Walter Kirn

Mind Somewhere Faulkner Favorite Visit Angeles Writer Raymond Longs Most Mississippi Reader Always Los Los Angeles Up Just Where Want Grew Anywhere Etc Places Commune Worked Page Certainly Lived Nowhere

I say 'here's the thing' a lot, both to alert people that I'm about to say something important and to give myself a moment to figure out what that important thing might be, because my head is so often completely empty. Walter Kirn

The Bible has been through millions of rounds of exegesis and interpretation, but it hasn't been until quite recently that it's been taken as the absolute truth, to the point where people expect it to inform ideas about biology and life on this planet. Walter Kirn

Life Truth Bible People Interpretation Biology Has-Been About Absolute Point Through Absolute Truth Taken Ideas Until Been Expect Quite Where Inform Planet Rounds Millions Recently

A writer is someone who tells you one thing so someday he can tell his readers another thing: what he was thinking but declined to say, or what he would have thought had he been wiser. A writer turns his life into material, and if you're in his life, he uses yours, too. Walter Kirn

Life You Thought Thinking Too Say Tell Tells Would One Thing Someday Someone Writer Had He Wiser Readers Another Material Been His Declined Turns Yours Who Uses Thing

The least sexy city is Los Angeles. And it poses as the most sexy. As you grow up, L.A. is being sold to you as home of the bikini-clad party girls. And then you get there, and it's full of very goal-oriented, yoga-obsessed careerists. Walter Kirn

I had the impression from reading English literature that British women were great beauties, and I only had seen Julie Christie, and she was gorgeous and sexy. I don't know whether it was just my taste, but when I got to London, I went two years without seeing a truly attractive woman. A lot of near misses. Walter Kirn

Great Woman Women Gorgeous Seen Reading Sexy London Seeing Only Had Beauties Misses Know Attractive She Without Got Were Years Truly Julie Lot Impression Taste Just Whether Literature English English Literature Near Two British

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