The hardest thing in a novel is time. You've got [a line like] "two weeks later, he woke up with a headache,"… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Work saved me. Literature saved me. It sounds corny but it's absolutely true. I was going in the wrong direction, but after… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Basically for me a story can be anything. Anything you tell me, anything I read in the newspaper, in any mode. I… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
“Writing is a habit, an addiction, as powerful and overmastering an urge as putting a bottle to your lips or a spike… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I like to joke that you usually write more books before death than after death, so that's why I'm doing it. But… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
If you focus on literature through only one small element of it, like the more scientific element of linguistics, then where is… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I don't know who they are[my characters] . They're entirely invented characters. Maybe that's how I've been able to write so many… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I'm just having fun making jokes and writing books. But you see me once a year, I come on when I have… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I think it's a great thing to hear the author reading. I've listened to CDs of Cheever and Updike reading their stories… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
“I do feel that literature should be demystified. What I object to is what is happening in our era: literature is only… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Criticism can be wonderful, especially in making connections in an interpretive way. But by applying theories randomly, it's an interesting exercise, but… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I can't be reading novels when I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. The hardest thing to do is keep… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
We've all had the experience of you pick up a book, you can't get into it, you can't concentrate.Then one day you… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I think if you read all my books you know where I stand, pretty much. You could probably give the reader a… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I go around with my books so much and I love to perform on stage, to remind everybody that the lights are… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
We live in a cluttered culture, a culture of information in which even our computers can't tell us what's worth knowing and… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I'm a product of state schools. I had a working-class family. We had no books. I was the first to go to… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
If I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
“I've always been a quitter. I quit the Boy Scouts, the glee club, the marching band. Gave up my paper route, turned… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I always dread the process of writing because I'm not a writer. I'm an audible guy, I'm a verbal guy. I love… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Everything we do is escapism, because we'll all be dead and everything we do is completely meaningless. Why brush your teeth? Why not be… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
The hardest thing in a novel is time. You've got [a line like] "two weeks later, he woke up with a headache," and you've… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Writing is a channeling of an individual experience; so is reading. That's what's so exciting about this art form - it's interactive. — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
I'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write stories in… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Work saved me. Literature saved me. It sounds corny but it's absolutely true. I was going in the wrong direction, but after the 9,000th… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if there were… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
“Besides, to like something, to really like it and come out and say so, is taking a terrible risk. I mean, what if I'm… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
“I am concerned with social and environmental issues. What rational person is not? But advocacy and art do not mix. Art is a seduction.… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain. — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
A glad zest and hopefulness might be inspired even in the most jaded and ennui-cursed, were there in our homes such simple, truthful natures… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
What I'm doing is exploring things. This is why I'm a fiction writer rather than an essayist or a politician or whatever. I just… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
“Who was she in high school? Little Miss Nobody. She could have embroidered it on her sweaters, tattooed it across her forehead. And in… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image