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
Trying
Reader
Stop
Story
Detective
Actually
Detectives
Stories
Puzzle
Anything
Solving
Find
Puzzles
Writing
Solve

More quotes by 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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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.
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I was obsessed with Agatha Christie in sixth grade.
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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 feel that I'm solid at description.
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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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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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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One day I want to write a full-on horror book.
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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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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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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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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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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If you've been in the art world for more than eight years, you realize another generation is making the exact same work as the previous generation - but treating it like it's never been done before. It becomes very cyclical very quickly.
Christopher Bollen
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The death drive is parasitic. It runs off of other drives, leeching off of them.
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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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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My strength is character. I'm pretty good at building walking-talking humans with brains like beehives.
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