If you focus on literature through only one small element of it, like the more scientific element of linguistics, then where is the joy that brought us literature in the first place, which is to have a story? — 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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
“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
Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain. — T.C. Boyle Copy Share
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
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
“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
The professorial dictum has always been to write what you know, but I say write what you don't know and find something out. And… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share
A richly detailed, poignant, and utterly fascinating look into another culture and how it is cross-pollinated by our own. It brings to mind the… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share
I always listen to music while I'm working and I always read aloud to my wife. I love to read aloud to an audience… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share
