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" This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them. "
T. C. Boyle
Like
Characters
Beauty
Related Quotes:
" I do not want to repeat myself. I want to reach for something I've never attained. This is the excitement of art. "
T. C. Boyle
Myself
Excitement
Art
" My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth. "
T. C. Boyle
My Life
Life
Job
" As humans, we all want our own island. Of course, the truth is, we're never going to get it. "
T. C. Boyle
Own
Want
Truth Is
" I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy. "
T. C. Boyle
Audience
Love
Questions
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Laugh
Reading
Book
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Me
Like
Hope
" 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
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Looking
Brain
Goodbye
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
World
Too Much
Art
" I really like the power of stopping the laughter and turning it to horror. "
T. C. Boyle
Power
Really
Laughter
" I'm enslaved to writing to the point where I sacrifice almost everything else. "
T. C. Boyle
Everything
Point
Sacrifice
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
God
Animal
Science
" If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed. "
T. C. Boyle
Writing
Lose
Entertainment
" I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. "
T. C. Boyle
Read
Somebody
Voice
" Sometimes, we find common ground; more often, we don't. "
T. C. Boyle
Find
Common Ground
Sometimes
" You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before. "
T. C. Boyle
Yourself
Want
Done
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Chair
Never
Fear
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
I Am
New
World
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Kind
Impact
How
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
News
Value
Story
" This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth. "
T. C. Boyle
Why
Truth
Art
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Hope
Science
Face
" I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are. "
T. C. Boyle
Heroes
Always
Who
" 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
" I envy Jesus because he's dead. "
T. C. Boyle
Dead
Jesus
Because
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Tomorrow
Morning
Saying
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Tyranny
Live
Day
" The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced. "
T. C. Boyle
Seduced
Seduction
Novel
" 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. "
T. C. Boyle
Stand
Political
Art
" What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language? "
T. C. Boyle
Language
Identity
You