George Plimpton > Quotes

“I have never been convinced there's anything inherently wrong in having fun. ”
― George Plimpton

“I never understood people who don't have bookshelves.”
― George Plimpton

“As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them.
Oscar Wilde said, 'You destroy the thing that you love.' It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.”
― George Plimpton, intro

“I never understood people who don't have bookshelves”
― George Plimpton

“The pleasure of sport was so often the chance to indulge the cessation of time itself--the pitcher dawdling on the mound, the skier poised at the top of a mountain trail, the basketball player with the rough skin of the ball against his palm preparing for a foul shot, the tennis player at set point over his opponent--all of them savoring a moment before committing themselves to action.”
― George Plimpton, Paper Lion

“He still has the same way of calling to me, as if I'm still new to him, as if he has yet to get over me.”
― George Plimpton

“Art has something to do with the arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.”
― George Plimpton

“You do not cut a check in the state of Kansas to John Doe, executioner. The executioner is paid in cash so there's no trail to him”
― george plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career

“A male star named "T.T. Boy"....is a legend in the business [actor in commercial porn films]. T.T. Boy does not look at all glamorous - he's a small, tough-guy, assistant mobster type; sometimes he chews gum during his lovemaking scenes. He pounds his partners...Once memorably described as 'nothing more than a life-support system for his penis,' he got the kind of admiring, solid applause reserved for a large artillery piece going by in a parade.”
― George Plimpton, The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair: And Other Excursions and Observations

“America is very, very cruel to its artists. It doesn't give them a chance for growth. It doesn't give them elbow room for change. There's no room at all for failure."

- Carol Marcus Matthau”
― George Plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career

“Besides, good swearing is used as a form of punctuation, not necessarily a response to pain or insult, and is utilized by experts to lend a sentence a certain zest, like a sprinkling of paprika.”
― George Plimpton, Paper Lion

“The players say that of Vince Lombardi of the Packers,” I said. “That he was once a player’s coach, and that the pressure in Green Bay changed him into a martinet… removed him from his players.”
― George Plimpton, Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback