Writing a novel that works is an extremely difficult thing to do. It requires a level of skill and dedication that always surprises me.
BRET EASTON ELLISYou don’t market-research a novel; you really are writing it for yourself. It’s a hobby, in many ways. The problem becomes what you do when you’re confronted by criticism. You just don’t listen to it.
More Bret Easton Ellis Quotes
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People can get accustomed to anything, right? Habit does things to people.
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I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning
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There’s no grand plan. All I know is that I write the books I want to write. All that other stuff is meaningless to me.
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I locked in on the smug feeling of superiority that married couples give off and that permeated the air – the shared assumptions, the sweet and contented apathy, it all lingered everywhere – despite the absence in the room of anyone single at which to aim this.
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I think the ’80s created me, in a way, when I look back on that time, but I don’t necessarily think that a lot of my choices, and a lot of things that I did, and a lot of things that happened to me – or I let happen to me – were about that decade.
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She sits before me, sullen but hopeful, characterless, about to dissolve into tears. I squeeze her hand back, moved, no, touched by her ignorance of evil. She has one more test to pass. Do you own a briefcase?” I ask her, swallowing.
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Everyone I know who is successful has issues with their father, regardless of whether it was sports or business or entertainment.
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Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever.
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Devastates me and I make a mental note to ask him where he purchases his hair-care products, which kind of mousse he uses, my final guesses after mulling over the possibilities being Ten-X.
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
I learned that you really don’t have any control as a writer. Waah, waah, waah. Big deal. Unless you’re the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don’t have a lot of control.
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There’s no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I’ve started drinking my own urine.
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And as the elevator descents, passing the second floor, and the first floor, going even father down, I realize that the money doesn’t matter. That all that does is that I want to see the worst
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
I tried to make meat loaf out of the girl but it becomes too frustrating a task and instead I spend the afternoon smearing her meat all over the walls, chewing on strips of skin I ripped from her body
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.
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Hello, Halberstam,” Owen says, walking by. Hello, Owen,” I say, admiring the way he’s styled and slicked back his hair, with a part so even and sharp it…
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Open the hood of a car and it will tell you something about the people who designed it, is just one of many phrases I’m tortured by.
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So…” Kimball looks at his book helplessly. “There’s nothing you can tell me about Paul Owen?” “Well.” I sigh. “He led what I suppose was an orderly life, I guess. “ Really stumped, I offer, “He…ate a balanced diet.
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
I want to moan and writhe with you and I want to go up to you and kiss your mouth and pull you to me and say “I love you I love you I love you” while stripping. I want you so bad it stings.
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One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.”‘ I stop finish my J&B in one swallow. ‘What does the other part of him think?’ Hamlin asks tentatively. ‘What her head would look like on a stick…’
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
Fear never shows up and the party ends early.
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
I’m not a big believer in disciplined writers. What does discipline mean? The writer who forces himself to sit down and write for seven hours every day might be wasting those seven hours if he’s not in the mood and doesn’t feel the juice. I don’t think discipline equals creativity.
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
But this road doesn’t go anywhere,” I told him. “That doesn’t matter.” “What does?” I asked, after a little while. “Just that we’re on it, dude,” he said.
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
Yes. Yes I am. I am a completely demented misogynist.
BRET EASTON ELLIS -
With “Taipei” Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation…
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Why was I holding on to something that would never be mine? But isn’t that what people do?
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Hip,” I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell’s—my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons.
BRET EASTON ELLIS