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" Of course all novelists are egomaniacs and want to draw everyone to their fold just like any other preacher. The snake-oil peddler, the false prophet, all of this is fascinating to me. But I certainly hope that I'm more humane than that. "

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" 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. "

T. C. Boyle

Story

Think

World

" Sometimes if something is entertaining and amusing, people tend to think that it doesn't have the depth of something that's dramatic. I don't think that's true. "

" 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. "

" I've never really been met with indifference, where they say, 'Who cares?' I think that's what good art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to make you feel good about your own prejudices and your own values; it's supposed to open you up in some way and get you outraged or make you happy or make you sad or whatever it's going to do. "

" Now that we all live in a bad '70s sci-fi movie, I am made to understand the tyranny of the machines every minute of every day. "

" If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed. "

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

" I hope to stay light on my feet, to work in many modes, to seek inspiration always, and avoid the fatal. But, as we all know, it is the price of life to burn out, both metaphorically and literally. "

" 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. "

" One of the reasons I've been able to be productive is that I want to do everything. "

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

" I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you. "

" I am a worrier. I worry about the state of our country, of the world, of our species. Every day seems to deliver a new nail to hammer into our collective coffin. "

" I'm not looking ahead joyfully to the rest of my life or the future of the human race. I've always written about man as an animal species among other animals, competing for limited resources. Our population is exploding. Our environment is dying. Science has debunked God. "

" Sometimes, we find common ground; more often, we don't. "

" It's true that none of my characters are admirable. But maybe I'm primarily a satirist, and a satirist needs to hold up what's not admirable. "

T. C. Boyle

Hold

Admirable

" 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. "

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

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

" I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels. "

T. C. Boyle

Working

Own

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

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

" 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. "

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

" I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book. "

" I worry about everything in the world, and it's just too much for anybody to think about, so I have my art as my consolation. "

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

" I read widely - for news, the arts, science, for entertainment, and the value of being informed - and, as a fiction writer, I can't help transposing what I learn into the scenario for a novel or story. "

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

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