Quote

There's a structure to a detective story that I can easily understand. I understand playing that particular game. It's like solving a puzzle. Or creating a puzzle.

Christopher Bollen

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Christopher Bollen
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: November 26
Journalist
Novelist
Cincinnati
Ohio
Games
Solving
Story
Puzzles
Understand
Easily
Stories
Structure
Like
Creating
Playing
Detective
Game
Detectives
Particular
Puzzle

More quotes by Christopher Bollen

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I had been going out to Orient for several years.
Christopher Bollen
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There is a value to moving more slowly through a story.
Christopher Bollen
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One day I want to write a full-on horror book.
Christopher Bollen
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I was obsessed with Agatha Christie in sixth grade.
Christopher Bollen
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My dad liked more macho adventure books like Shogun or spy novels. My mother reads murder mysteries. In fact, so does her mother, my grandma. That's where I trace the familial line of murder mystery obsession.
Christopher Bollen
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I just think, as writers, especially with a book that takes years to write, you sort of wake up every morning hoping and praying that you can make it work for the day.
Christopher Bollen
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I definitely don't take any of intrusions in my private life personally. You learn how to have a sense of humor pretty quickly. I honestly don't keep up on it unless it's something that would hurt someone else. I can take care of myself, that's not the problem. But it's just not fair to bring anyone else into the picture.
Christopher Bollen
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It's really hard to write about art in general. But it's exceptionally hard to fictionalize art and make work that isn't a parody, or is something that could withstand critique and exist in the art world as a valuable object, or a true piece.
Christopher Bollen
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The first horror movie I saw, in first or second grade, was My Bloody Valentine [1981], where there's a deranged killer in a miner mask stalking a small coal town.
Christopher Bollen
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You find when you're writing a detective story that you're actually not trying to solve anything. You're trying to stop the reader from solving the puzzle.
Christopher Bollen
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Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.
Christopher Bollen
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I like to be alone, I mean, I really love to be alone more than anything else, and I don't really like to talk about myself to death, and I don't like to share too much, and I don't really have dreams of extreme fame or even extreme respect.
Christopher Bollen
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I'm convinced I was the only kid ever who had a Death on the Nile [1978] movie poster and a Murder on the Orient Express [1974] movie poster on his bedroom walls.
Christopher Bollen
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There seem to be two ways of generating interest from the reader: withholding information or by telling the reader on the first page exactly what's going to happen.
Christopher Bollen
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I really believe there is something in the nature of a democracy that naturally leads people to distrust the government, to assume because a democracy is built by people just like themselves that there must be secret plots and cover-ups and wizards behind the scenes running the machine.
Christopher Bollen
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I was never afraid on stage. That's where I was the least afraid. I could just do what I do and I had the amplification and the lights.
Christopher Bollen
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I have to say I do read partly for escapism. Why can't I escape and learn something?
Christopher Bollen
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I've never had a mentor. I've always wanted one. I'm actually really disappointed that nobody took my under their wing.
Christopher Bollen
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My parents were great parents, but for some bizarre reason they allowed me to watch whatever I wanted on TV, we had cable. And I constantly watched horror movies.
Christopher Bollen
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I had lived in New York since 1996, sometimes in the worst neighborhoods, without even locking my door half the time.
Christopher Bollen