James Lee Burke Quotes
-
Today, there are more opportunities for writers in terms of access to larger success, but it's more difficult to publish a literary novel in the lower ranges. In other words, you almost have to hit a home run. You can hit a triple, maybe, but nobody's interested in a single.
→ -
In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.
→ -
You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.
→ -
There is no higher form of artistic expression then film
→ -
That's one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don't want to, I don't care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.
→ -
Don't let anyone tell you that age purchases your freedom from fear of death.
→ -
writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.
→ -
In that moment, when watches and clocks misbehave and you feel a cold vapor wrap itself around your heart, you unconsciously draw a line at the bottom of a long column of numbers and come up with a sum. Perhaps it's one that fills you with contentment and endows you with a level of courage and an acceptance that you didn't know you possessed.Or maybe not.
→ -
The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision.
→ -
Success, like fashion, is a fickle companion and can leave one in the wink of an eye.
→ -
God bless the Reference Librarians
→ -
How do you caution a fawn about a cigarette a motorist has just flipped from his car window into a patch of yellow grass, or tell a sparrow that winged creatures eventually plummet to earth?
→ -
Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.
→ -
Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.
→ -
We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.
→ -
Never read bad stuff if you're an artist; it will impair your own game. I don't know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art's the same way.
→ -
I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call "traditional America."
→ -
Don't undo a brave and noble deed. Don't rob yourself of your own virtue.
→ -
Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.
→ -
The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.
→ -
Age is a peculiar kind of thief. It slips up on you and steps inside your skin and is so quiet and methodical in its work that you never realize it has stolen your youth until you look into the mirror one morning and see a man you don't recognize.
→ -
But perhaps age has taught me that the earth is still new, molten at the core and still forming, that black leaves in the winter forest will crawl with life in the spring, that our story is ongoing and it is indeed a crime to allow the heart's energies to dissipate with the fading of light on the horizon.
→ -
If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next.
→ -
I think all good narration contains an element of mystery and suspense. If it didn't, if the storyline were predictable, we would have no interest in reading it.
→ -
We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
→ -
I wouldn't write anything autobiographical. If you've lived a life like Laurence of Arabia, it might be a consideration, but otherwise it's a little bit vain, it seems to me.
→ -
We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we've been in wars ever since. We're not a pacific people.
→ -
I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.
→ -
Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
→ -
And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.
→
Related Authors
-
Alafair Burke Novelist -
Robert Crais Author -
Bertrand Tavernier Director -
Robert B. Parker Crime writer -
Lawrence Block Writer -
Elmore Leonard Novelist -
Lee Child Writer -
James Ellroy Crime writer -
Ron McLarty Actor -
Michael Connelly Author -
Tony Hillerman Author -
James Crumley Author -
William Kent Krueger Author -
Ian Rankin Crime writer -
Dennis Lehane Author -
Ken Bruen Writer -
John Connolly Writer -
Brad Thor Novelist -
Will Patton Actor