Lesli Becraft > Lesli's Quotes

“The easier a thing is to write then the more the writer gets paid for writing it. (And vice versa: ask the poets at the bus stop.)”
― Martin Amis

“One recalls John Updike's argument: the only evidence for the existence of God is the collective human yearning that it should be so.”
― Martin Amis, Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million

“Making lots of money--it's not that hard, you know. It's overestimated. Making lots of money is a breeze. You watch. ch. 1, p. 23 in Penguin paperback”
― Martin Amis (Author), Money

“It takes three or four years before the present day sinks in to you as a novelist. It has not just to be accepted in the mind but travel down your spine and fill your body and you can’t respond immediately to immediate events, there is this incubation period.

Source: http://www.euronews.com/2013/06/25/ma...”
― Martin Amis

“The ad world used to be something of a refuge for literary types. But I feared for myself at J.W.T. It seemed to be entirely peopled by blocked dramatists, likeably shambling poets, and one-off novelists. The whole place felt like a clubworld sunset home for literary talent. ”
― Martin Amis, Experience

“He laughed. “What’s to say? Great paintings—people flock to see them, they draw crowds, they’re reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a lifetime of perfectly sincere museum-going where you traipse around enjoying everything and then go out and have some lunch. But—” crossing back to the table to sit again “—if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you.” Fingertip gliding over the faded-out photo—the conservator’s touch, a touch-without-touching, a communion wafer’s space between the surface and his forefinger.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“...it was complicated, she wasn't thinking only of herself but me too, since we'd both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike-too much. And because we'd both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn't, and couldn't, understand, wasn't it a bit… precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn't doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn't it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn't that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? and though this was left to float in the air a bit, I realized instantly, and with some considerable astonishment, what she was getting at. (Dumb of me not to have seen it earlier, after all the injuries, the crushed leg, the multiple surgeries; adorable drag in the voice, adorable drag in the step, the arm-hugging and the pallor, the scarves and sweaters and multiple layers of clothes, slow drowsy smile: she herself, the dreamy childhood her, was sublimity and disaster, the morphine lollipop I'd chased for all those years.)”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“We have art in order not to die from the truth. —NIETZSCHE”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“From the window, above the clatter of pots and the slamming of cabinets, Francis was singing, as though it was the happiest song in the world: 'We are the little black sheep who have gone astray . . . Baa baa baa . . . Gentlemen songsters off on a spree . . . Doomed from here to eternity . . .”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I luv the ded, this old baster sez to me when I wiz tryin to get some innfurmashin out ov him. You fukin old pervirt I sez, gettin a bit fed up by this time enyway, an slit his throate; ah asks you whare the fukin Sleeping Byootie woz, no whit kind of humpin you lyke.”
― Iain Banks, The Bridge

“There are times when you can't do the sensible thing, when you can't act like a responsible adult at all; you just have to do whatever insane thing comes into your head. When bad people do it they end up murderers, when good people do it they end up heroes, and when the rest of do it we end up looking like total idiots. But when's that ever stopped us?”
― Iain Banks, Espedair Street

“Look on the happy side, think of the good things. Hadn't it been clever? Yes, it had.”
― Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas

“We have to live and let live in order to create what we are.”
― Albert Camus

“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death.”
― Albert Camus

“I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness. ”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“It is necessary to fall in love – the better to provide an alibi for all the despair we are going to feel anyway.”
― Albert Camus

“The room was very quiet. I walked over to the TV set and turned it on to a dead channel-white noise at maximum decibels, a fine sound for sleeping, a powerful continuous hiss to drown out everything strange.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

“Paranoia is just another mask for ignorance. The truth, when you finally chase it down is almost always far worse than your darkest visions and fears”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“A lot of blood has gone under the bridge since then, and we have all learned a hell of a lot about the realities of Politics in America. Even the politicians have learned – but, as usual, the politicians are much slower than the people they want to lead.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

“I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it — over and over, again and again... ”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

“My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me. I would do it all over again without changing the beat, although I have never recommended it to others. That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am none of those things.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“He wandered into the Newsroom and asked for a job the same way he’d walk into a barbershop and ask for a haircut, and with no more idea of being turned down.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

“Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us?”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“Ah didnae really know much aboot women. Ah didnae really know much aboot anything.”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“ასეა თუ ისე, იმდენად დაღლილი ვარ, რო ეგრევე ვხუჭავ თვალებს და ძილი თავს მართმევს. ოდნავ ვიძაბები, როცა ვგრძნობ, რო ბერიკაცი გვერდით მომიწვა, მარა მალევე ვდუნდები, რადგანაც გასუსული წევს და ახლოს მოკარებას არც კი ცდილობს. თანაც ორივე ჩაცმულები ვწევართ. ვგრძნობ, რო ავადმყოფურ, უგონო ძილში ვიძირები.
ვიღვიძებ. აზრზე არა ვარ, რამდენ საათს მეძინა. პირი გამშრალი მაქვს, სახეზე კი უცნაური სისველის შეგრძნება მაწუხებს. ლოყაზე ხელს ვისვამ და ვხედავ, რო ხელზე რაღაც მოთეთრო, შედედებული და წებოვანი ნივთიერება ამყვა. ვტრიალდები და რას ვხედავ!.. ბერიკაცი გვერდზე მიწევს, მთლად დედიშობილაა და პატარა, მსუქანი ასოდან სპერმა მოუჟონავს.
- უუუ, შე გათახსირებულო ბებერო!.. ზედ მომათავე, სანამ მეძინა, შე ბოზო, შენა?!… მოგკლავ, შე ახვარო ნაბიჭვარო! - ასე მგონია, ბინძური ცხვირსახოცი ვარ-მეთქი, რომელიც იხმარეს და გადააგდეს. ჭკუიდან გადასული ერთ მაგარს ვულაწუნებ სიფათში და საწოლიდან ვაგდებ. საზიზღარ, ტრაკგასიებულ ჯუჯას ჰგავს, დიდი ღიპითა და მრგვალი გოგრით. მოკრუნჩხული გდია იატაკზე და მე წიხლებს იქამდე ვურტყამ, სანამ არ ვხვდები, რო ტირის.”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“He's going on and on, and I can't be bothered. I just can't be fuckin well arsed saying something like: Solaris shites all over 2001, and then listening to him arguing vehemently against it. Or, alternatively, waiting for him to say it, and then being expected to argue engingly, as if to agree, even if we do, is a sign that we're effete proofs. I can't be bothered with it and I can't even be bothered to tell him that I can'be be bothered.”
― Irvine Welsh, Porno

“The best writers tend to look the roughest in photos. At least that's the excuse I use for why I look so bad in mine.”
― R.D. Ronald

“by”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“They're animals, all right. But why are you so sure that makes us human beings?”
― Richard Bachman