Jess Walter

All we have is the story we tell.

— Jess Walter

Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.

— Jess Walter

You have to do disappointment twice.

— Jess Walter

“Ideas are sphincters. Every asshole has one.”

— Jess Walter

“Being alive isn't the same thing as living”

— Jess Walter

“Make them want to give you the thing you're taking.”

— Jess Walter

I'm certainly eclectic in my writing.

— Jess Walter

“We want what we want—we love who we love.”

— Jess Walter

I'm a writer, and the subject is less important than the act of writing itself.

— Jess Walter

“Claire happy to no longer expect...but embrace the sweet lovely mess that is real life.”

— Jess Walter

I come from a newspaper background, so maybe Im attuned to current events.

— Jess Walter

I've been simultaneously drawn to and repelled from Hollywood for years.

— Jess Walter

There was a time when self-promotion was considered so verboten, especially for authors.

— Jess Walter

“Two kinds of people always lie about their ages: actresses and Latin American pitchers.”

— Jess Walter

I've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in…

— Jess Walter

“...the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

— Jess Walter

A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.” Alvis finished his wine. “You…

— Jess Walter

“What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the…

— Jess Walter

“He wondered if the German girl ever knew that someone had loved her so much that he painted her twice on the…

— Jess Walter

Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in…

— Jess Walter

You probably have to trust that your work is following certain themes and certain movements, but then the rest is a kind…

— Jess Walter

“And we want car wrecks. We say we don't. But we love them. To look is to love. A thousand people drive…

— Jess Walter

The neighborhoods I grew up in were poor and full of drug users. I don't think you have to look that hard…

— Jess Walter

“For several seconds, they stand there, ...just four feet apart now, but separated by a thick granite counter, by fifty years and…

— Jess Walter

“Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing.…

— Jess Walter

I think most Hollywood meetings are silly and I truly despise pitching. It's insane to expect someone to come in and tell…

— Jess Walter

For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always…

— Jess Walter

Forget being 'discovered.' All you can do is write. If you write well enough, and are stubborn enough to embrace failure, and…

— Jess Walter

“To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when…

— Jess Walter

“But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has…

— Jess Walter

“I don't know what I expected – no maybe I do, Al Pacino from Scarface- but this drug dealer is more like…

— Jess Walter

“A hole opened up and he had to know what was inside it. So he picked and picked until the hole was…

— Jess Walter

“Every Sunday, the Weavers drove their Oldsmobile east toward Waterloo and pulled into the gravel parking lot of the Cedarloo Baptist Church,…

— Jess Walter

“But aren't all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos--…

— Jess Walter

“IN THE NINE YEARS since the standoff at Ruby Ridge and in the six years since this book first appeared, much has…

— Jess Walter

“Stories are bulls. Writers come of age full of vigor, and they feel the need to drive the old stories from the…

— Jess Walter

“Maybe it's ALWAYS the end of the world. Maybe you're alive for a while, and then you realize you're going to die,…

— Jess Walter

“So I make one phone call, and just like that, we're eating pizza at 6:30. What is this world? You tap seven…

— Jess Walter

“To the Cedar Falls legalists, if God’s word could come that way 10,000 years ago, there was no reason to believe it…

— Jess Walter

“YOU CAN SEE FOR MILES in both directions from the point on Ruby Ridge. From here, the paths of the Weaver family…

— Jess Walter