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" It's hard to say how certain stories just punch us in the heart and the brain at the same time at the end. I suppose that's what we're all looking for. But each story has its own valence, its own way of saying goodbye to you. "

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" It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too. "

T. C. Boyle

Know

Funny

Think

" What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language? "

" I do not want to repeat myself. I want to reach for something I've never attained. This is the excitement of art. "

" I never go anywhere without a book for fear of being stuck in line in front of the theater or strapped down in the dentist's chair and being bored witless. Thus, I read everywhere. "

" Science has killed religion. There's no hope for the future with seven billion of us on the planet, and the only thing you can do is to laugh in the face of it all. "

" I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy. "

" In previous generations, there was purpose; you had to die, but there was God, and literature and culture would go on. Now, there is no God, and our species is imminently doomed, so there is no purpose. We get up, raise families, have bank accounts, fix our teeth and everything else. But really, there is utterly no purpose except to be alive. "

" I describe myself as an environmentalist not because I'm marching in the street with placards but because I like to be in the woods by myself. "

T. C. Boyle

Because

Myself

" I really like the power of stopping the laughter and turning it to horror. "

" This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth. "

" I am mad for nature writing. I want to get inside the head of every creature in the world, even ants. "

" The compulsively readable events of my life occurred mainly in infancy, and it's been pretty humdrum ever since. "

" Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don't have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier. "

" Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all. "

" 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. "

" The beauty of American law is you cannot slander anybody who is dead. This is not true in all countries. "

" I'm enslaved to writing to the point where I sacrifice almost everything else. "

" You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before. "

" I tell jokes, and I have fun, but I tend to worry about everybody and everything throughout the entire world. "

" This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them. "

T. C. Boyle

Characters

Beauty

" The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced. "

" As humans, we all want our own island. Of course, the truth is, we're never going to get it. "

" I think that's what art is about: to provoke you. It helps me make sense of a senseless universe because I become the god of the story. I create it, and I see it in all its lineaments in my own way and can control it - in a world in which everything else is out of control. "

" I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning. "

" Look at Sam Beckett. Most depressed man who ever lived, but he sure was funny. "

" I think, 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. It's not supposed to be political. I think if you read all my books, you know where I stand, pretty much. "

" I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are. "

" My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth. "

" Art saved me. It may sound corny, but it's true. "

T. C. Boyle

True

Sound

" What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions. "