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

I'd assumed that a deal was a deal when Princeton admitted me, but I was wrong. The price of getting in - to the university itself, and to the great world it promised to open up - was an endless dunning for nebulous services that weren't included in the initial quote. Walter Kirn

My primary ambition is to be a fiction writer... Being a critic wasn't an aspiration of mine. Walter Kirn

Ambition Mine Critic Writer Primary Being Fiction Fiction Writer Aspiration

To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge placed before him, except the challenge of real self-knowledge. Walter Kirn

People Intelligence Challenge Before Young Every Typical Able Born Rise Mental Except Raw Almost Weird Him Sort Equated Self-Knowledge Real Person Which Placed Young People Planet Produced Certain Agility Sat Specimen

Since the founding of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other mainstays of what technology writers have come to call 'the social Web' or 'Web 2.0,' a sizable portion of humanity has learned to be together while apart, sacrificing intimacy for control and spontaneity for predictability. Walter Kirn

Technology Together Facebook Humanity Control Twitter Other Intimacy Web Instagram Writers Sacrificing Since Come Spontaneity Call Learned Predictability While Apart Social Founding Portion

Here's how adaptation works - almost everything in the movie is in the book in some form. But it's as though the deck has been completely reshuffled and some of the cards have been assigned different values, some of the fours have been made into jacks, and some of the jacks have been made into twos. Walter Kirn

Good short-story collections, like good record albums, are almost always hit-and-miss affairs - successful if they include three or four great tracks, wildly successful if they have five. And that's as it should be. Walter Kirn

Good Great Three Wildly Collections Record Good Record Almost Like Tracks Always Affairs Five Successful Should Include Four Albums

The reason that last-ditch political maneuvering has become business as usual in Washington is that the actors involved are drunk on blame and are convinced that the voting public is, too. They count on outrage, thereby spreading numbness. They cherish the prospect of partisan fury, thereby inspiring nonpartisan disgust. Walter Kirn

Business Blame Voting Political Drunk Become Too Fury Outrage Inspiring Count Prospect Involved Partisan Spreading Cherish Disgust Public Convinced Reason Thereby Usual Washington Actor

Guns can turn you into an insider even if you're an outsider by nature, recruiting you into a loose fraternity of people who feel embattled and defensive and are primally eager to win allies. Walter Kirn

Nature You People Win Defensive Fraternity Insider Guns Allies Recruiting Outsider Feel Loose Turn Who Even Eager

I read somewhere once that in the 1960s, fiction writers were troubled by the notion that life was becoming stranger and more sensational than made-up stories could ever hope to be. Our new problem - more profound, I think - is that life no longer resembles a story. Events intersect but don't progress. People interact but don't make contact. Walter Kirn

Life Hope People Problem Events Progress Somewhere Think Our Once More Could Troubled Writers Contact Longer New Make Read Becoming Were Than Interact Sensational Fiction Fiction Writers Stories Story Notion Stranger Resembles Ever Profound Intersect

E-mails, phone calls, Web sites, videos. They're still all letters, basically, and they've come to outnumber old-fashioned conversations. They are the conversation now. Walter Kirn

Conversation Phone Videos Phone Calls Web Web Sites Outnumber Come Calls Still Sites Conversations Old-Fashioned Now Letters Basically

Truth is stranger than nonfiction. And life is too interesting to be left to journalists. People have stories, but journalists have 'takes,' and it's their takes that usually win out when the stories are too complicated or, as happens, not complicated enough. Walter Kirn

Life Truth Truth Is People Complicated Win Too Enough Out Takes Journalists Nonfiction Left Than Stories Happens Interesting Stranger

One of the saddest things about publishing is how quickly it ages what it touches. The frenzy involved in getting books on shelves, and in putting the word out that they're there, moves at a speed that is not the speed of writing, let alone of reading. Walter Kirn

Size matters in fiction, but so does lack of size. Everything else being equal, fat novels tend to be perceived as serious, very thin ones as more honest, more real. Writers address these age-old expectations by filling their big books with philosophy and cramming their little ones with feeling. Walter Kirn

Feeling Big Matters Else Everything Address Books Everything Else Philosophy Perceived More Tend Writers Equal Does Real Very Expectations Lack Being Size Fiction Little Age-Old Serious Novels Filling Thin Fat Honest

I'm a novelist, a critic, an essayist - I tend to see politics as a subset of cultures rather than the other way around. It's a human enterprise, a tool or a technology revealing our collective inner self. Walter Kirn

The idea that Americans favor politicians who either remind them of themselves or can imagine what their selves are like because they too have struggled and sung the blues, is, like very best theories of human behavior, immune to falsification by mere evidence. Walter Kirn

Best Behavior Politicians Too Evidence Favor Sung Immune Struggled Mere Remind Idea Like Because Very Selves American Human Blues Human Behavior Either Them Themselves Theories Who Imagine

Yes, in the commercial world there's room for both McDonald's and Whole Foods, but in the realm of politics, we're told, it's either Filet-o-Fish or line-caught salmon: only one can prevail - and which is up to you. Walter Kirn

Politics Prevail You World Only Both Foods Up Yes Salmon Commercial McDonald Either Which Room Realm Whole Whole Foods

In America, to be ID'd - sorted, tagged, and permanently filed - is to lose a bit of one's soul. To die a little. This sounds like a subtle, poetic notion. It's not. In American legal and cultural tradition, one essential privilege of citizenship is not having to prove it on demand. Walter Kirn

Soul Legal Lose Bit Citizenship Having Poetic Tagged Demand Like Sorted Permanently Prove Sounds Tradition Cultural Privilege America American Die Essential Subtle Little Notion

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