Walter Kirn quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Walter Kirn

I preferred that my bad dreams be vague.

What was more humiliating, I wondered: having to beg for someone's cold chicken bones or being offered them?

Walter Kirn quotes: God is a freaking character, with enough foibles, tantrums, and paradoxical behaviors to supply a thousand screenplays. But who do you cast?

God is a freaking character, with enough foibles, tantrums, and paradoxical behaviors to supply a thousand screenplays. But who do you cast?

I still believe in love. I always will. It's my blessing and my burden.

Given Loughner's obsession with meaninglessness and language, maybe Foucault & Derrida deserve some fault here, too.

Walter Kirn quotes: Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

This is how it works now with the news: the story begins with a moral, then a narrative is fashioned to support it.

Walter Kirn quotes: She was already dead, but we were starved for followers and stupefied by the elixir of our own heroism, and so we pretended words could resurrect her.

She was already dead, but we were starved for followers and stupefied by the elixir of our own heroism, and so we pretended words could resurrect her.

Stopping to think is fine for characters, but not for their creators. They have to work.

The market is the only critic that matters.

I think of myself as writing realist American fiction. 'Cynical but hopeful' wouldn't be the worst thing I've ever been called.

Walter Kirn quotes: If the future, as imagined in literature, is really the present taken to extremes, then the past is also the present, but boiled down.

If the future, as imagined in literature, is really the present taken to extremes, then the past is also the present, but boiled down.

I sensed the presence of wizened bachelor potters working in sheds behind their mothers' houses.

I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.

Love is a powerful painkiller.

Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.

Walter Kirn quotes: I'd forgotten this about women: so many conditions. A man shouldn't take them to heart, and yet he does, because he doesn't want to be alone.

I'd forgotten this about women: so many conditions. A man shouldn't take them to heart, and yet he does, because he doesn't want to be alone.

This was all our world was made of: decomposed visions. Not atoms
bits of dreams.

Walter Kirn quotes: Other people's devotions embarrassed me, perhaps because, like other people's kisses, they rarely looked genuine when viewed too closely.

Other people's devotions embarrassed me, perhaps because, like other people's kisses, they rarely looked genuine when viewed too closely.

Walter Kirn quotes: Overpopulation has a ceiling: earth's total surface area divided by the dimensions of one economy seat. One more baby is born and hello cannibalism.

Overpopulation has a ceiling: earth's total surface area divided by the dimensions of one economy seat. One more baby is born and hello cannibalism.

Walter Kirn quotes: How soon human beings forget what a privilege it is to live in freedom. A privilege, not an honor. An honor would mean we deserved it. We do not.

How soon human beings forget what a privilege it is to live in freedom. A privilege, not an honor. An honor would mean we deserved it. We do not.

Walter Kirn quotes: Horror and panic themselves are forms of violence, and diminishing them, restricting their dimensions, is itself a civilizing act.

Horror and panic themselves are forms of violence, and diminishing them, restricting their dimensions, is itself a civilizing act.

The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.

The human body is strangely made and sometimes it pays not to think about it too closely.

You long for a windfall that will let you quit and pursue your great hobby

Walter Kirn quotes: For time to pass it would have to go somewhere, and where would that be? Time sits. We move, it sits. Sometimes it trembles slightly, but that's all.

For time to pass it would have to go somewhere, and where would that be? Time sits. We move, it sits. Sometimes it trembles slightly, but that's all.

At college, I wanted to be a poet. I liked the extremely concentrated language, the atmosphere of otherworldliness.

The strange anthropological lesson of social media is that human beings, if given a choice, often prefer to socialize alone.

Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying.

Walter Kirn quotes: To apologize for your personal absolutes, for what Sandy Pinter calls your "Core Attachments," means apologizing for your very existence.

To apologize for your personal absolutes, for what Sandy Pinter calls your "Core Attachments," means apologizing for your very existence.

It looked like just the sort of family Americans dream of having: dumb and loving.

Though I no longer liked him or respected him, the thought of his disapproval frightened me.

Men who turn their faith into a business owe all of us a steak dinner now and then.

I could see tall ideas standing up behind his eyes.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

She's everything I wanted when I was young and everything I distrust now that I'm not.

Our habit of wishing backward from what is to what might have been is the soft but persistent tapping that cracks the crystal.

Is it possible to be wiser on the page than you are in life? I'm hoping so.

Meanness on request isn't meanness at all, but kindness carried too far.

I feel like my head is finally the right size. I feel like it finally fits around my mind.

Walter Kirn quotes: In a world that's smarter than it used to be and, in some ways, smarter than it ought to be, stupidity has a way of making us seem all the

In a world that's smarter than it used to be and, in some ways, smarter than it ought to be, stupidity has a way of making us seem all the more human.

Walter Kirn quotes: When Loughner himself speaks and we find out his real influences are Spiderman, 'Gnome Chomsky,' Taylor Swift, and Dr. Bronner, then what?

When Loughner himself speaks and we find out his real influences are Spiderman, 'Gnome Chomsky,' Taylor Swift, and Dr. Bronner, then what?

The atom was split by persistence.

Walter Kirn quotes: The future of time, of how it's won or lost, endured or enjoyed, expanded or compressed, will depend on how it's valued, not how it's measured.

The future of time, of how it's won or lost, endured or enjoyed, expanded or compressed, will depend on how it's valued, not how it's measured.

Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?

Walter Kirn quotes: Remember daydreams? No, of course you don't. How could you? Three new text messages have just arrived, and another three, in a moment, will go out.

Remember daydreams? No, of course you don't. How could you? Three new text messages have just arrived, and another three, in a moment, will go out.

The best critic needn't be right, just interesting.

The most beautiful faces have some ugly in them.

Writing about the future and the past is less a way of dramatizing change than of showing, by way of contrast, what abides.

You thought you were found but you realize that you were lost, and someday you may discover that you're lost now.

Just breathing can be such a luxury sometimes.

Thoughts are thoughts and that's all they are.

Liars are exhausting people.

In the age of networked everything, life moves sideways and covers lots of ground while barely touching the earth.

Reason leavened with a little wit (if possible) is the real alternative to hate speech, meaning that there's no better time for it.

The jurors appear vaguely stranded and at loose ends, uprooted from their routines and livelihoods.

Central Wyoming was like hell without the flames, an underworld thrust up onto the surface.

Walter Kirn quotes: He lived in two modes, the apparent and the veiled, and in two realms, the opera and the sewer, and he shuttled between them like a genie.

He lived in two modes, the apparent and the veiled, and in two realms, the opera and the sewer, and he shuttled between them like a genie.

Walter Kirn quotes: Size has nothing to do with literature. All legs are long enough to touch the ground, and all books are big enough to fill their covers.

Size has nothing to do with literature. All legs are long enough to touch the ground, and all books are big enough to fill their covers.

They lived in a blurry world, those two, where clear, consistent intentions weren't required.

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

I've come to learn that the determined and gifted and genuine sociopath has far more power to deceive than we realize.

Uncertainty doesn't make life worth living, quite, but it does make striving and gambling worth attempting.

[T]he anti-vitriol vitriol is getting ugly.

Frustration comes from fighting your own momentum.

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

His voice sounded more sincere in these surroundings, less distorted by pride and pain.

Walter Kirn Quotes

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