Quote

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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Christopher Bollen
Age: 48
Born: 1975
Born: November 26
Journalist
Novelist
Cincinnati
Ohio
Writing
Solve
Trying
Reader
Stop
Story
Detective
Actually
Detectives
Stories
Puzzle
Anything
Solving
Find
Puzzles

More quotes by Christopher Bollen

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I was obsessed with Agatha Christie in sixth grade.
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Why I love chess and tennis - the volleying aspect, and the fact that your competitors' reactions and motivations and bluffs come into the game itself.
Christopher Bollen
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Going out into the country after living in the city is a loss of control.
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I had been going out to Orient for several years.
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My strength is character. I'm pretty good at building walking-talking humans with brains like beehives.
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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 feel that I'm solid at description.
Christopher Bollen
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It's hard for me to figure out where I want to be. But it's definitely in New York. I feel like New York throws different challenges at you and you can be more creative.
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
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Safety, reputation, their lives, their friends, and their world. Writers typically try to avoid that because it's not expedient.
Christopher Bollen
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An album for me as a teenager in the '70s was a fully formed concept. It was a body of work from an artist I liked or trusted or who excited me. Maybe one of the songs is really poppy and you listen to it on the radio as a hit single and then more of the world is about to find out about this artist by buying the record.
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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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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One day I want to write a full-on horror book.
Christopher Bollen
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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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I like change. I've never really had much consistency in my life, you know, from everyday work to my living situation to whether or not I'm going to be in L.A. The one constant thing in my life is my friends and family, which is all I need
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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Looking back, [R.E.M.]videos, by in large, have always been art films. I'm thinking of Losing My Religion. That's a landmark piece.
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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Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.
Christopher Bollen