Big Pete

“When a writer tells you his novel has received mixed reviews, it means that after his book was trashed and his heart broken in every newspaper and magazine in America, the weekend critic at the Pekin Daily Times said it was a heart-pounding race to the finish.”
― Pete Dexter, Spooner

“Leon Hubbard died ten minutes into lunch break on the first Monday in May, on the construction site of the new one-storey trauma wing at Holy Redeemer Hospital in South Philadelphia. One way or the other, he was going to lose the job.”
― Pete Dexter, God's Pocket

“I looked at my pages under the flashlight. They looked odd. Pages. Words. Black marks on paper. They didn't have eyes, or bodies. They weren't people. I didn't know why I put marks on paper. It was a dull thing to do. There must be livelier things to do. I remembered the river books I had read. There must be thousands of rivers to see. Seeing the flowing of rivers would be more interesting than making black marks on paper. The marks didn't have faces, and I had forgotten the faces that had been in my mind when I wrote them. Jill had a face. Emma had a face. My words didn't. They didn't flow like rivers, either. They had no little towns on their banks - little towns full of whores, people, goats. I didn't know what I was doing, spending so much time with paper. Looking at my novel by flashlight made me unhappy. Undoubtedly it was no good. It didn't look at all good. Probably I had just written it to take my mind off my various problems. I remembered Jill's anger when she said I had been doing what I really wanted to do, when I wrote. Writing instead of coping. Maybe she was right. It was an awful thought. On the other hand, she was wrong. I would rather have had her with me than to write all the books I would ever write if I lived to be as old as Uncle L and won every prize there was to win and became even more serious than Thomas Mann, if such a thing were possible. I would rather have Jill.”
― Larry McMurtry, All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

“You're afraid of smart women, aren't you?'
She had used this ploy before, having heard via the female bush telegraph that it was unanswerable. She was right though. I was leery of them. Art and Mike said taking an intellectual woman into your home was like taking in a baby raccoon. They were both amusing for a while but soon became randomly vicious and learned how to open the refrigerator.”
― Charles Portis, Gringos