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A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.” Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.

Jess Walter

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Jess Walter
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Spokane
Washington
Four
Twice
Desire
Disappointment
Three
Finished
Needs
Greatness
Things
Wine
Sea
Writer
Achieve

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His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.
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For many people it's Facebook, or sports on TV, whatever it is. I have my own demons that I battle. But whatever they are, you wish you could not do them. For most of us it's I cannot get off Facebook. But imagine that your demon has you living on the street. I don't think those compulsions and obsessions are that different.
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I quickly decided my zombies weren't really zombies. It was instead something you called people who were on this club drug, who then exhibited aggressive behaviors. And then like everyone who writes about zombies, I found it was so much fun.
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Because I'm a novelist, I think in terms of structure. The way I keep going is through structure. It's what inspires me and pushes me through.
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I pretty much drink a cup of coffee, write in my journal for a while, and then sit at a computer in my office and torture the keys. My one saving grace as a writer is that, if I'm having trouble with the novel I'm writing, I write something else, a poem or a short story. I try to avoid writer's block by always writing something.
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All we have is the story we tell.
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He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.
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No one gets to tell you what your life means!
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There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.
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The first fiction I ever wrote was short stories. I was writing short stories in my late teens and early twenties, and I think it's how you teach yourself to write.
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I think the path to becoming a writer has become more through the novel. It's easier to get a novel published than a book of stories, obviously, especially through big publishers.
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I doubt the terrorists saw 9/11 as a teaching opportunity. And we're not really a culture geared to anything as humble as 'learning.' But I was disappointed in how quickly everyone wanted to get back to normal. It was as if we watched terrorism on TV for a while, then got bored and turned back to 'American Idol.'
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What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?
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He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.
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I think suspense should be like any other color on a writers palette. I suppose Im in the minority but I think its crazy for literary fiction to divorce itself from stories that are suspenseful, and assign anything with cops or spies or criminals to some genre ghetto.
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I wrote short stories for seven years and used to mail them out. You couldn't send them by e-mail. I called them manila boomerangs. I'd seal the self-addressed stamped envelope inside an envelope and I'd mail it off, and it would come back six weeks later with a rejection letter in it.
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Maybe every couple lived in the gaps between conversations, unable to say the important things for fear they had already been said, or couldn't be said maybe every relationship started over every time two people came together.
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I've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in your life.
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Yes, what is it like? Certainly not like she dreamed. But maybe that's okay. We want what we want. At home, she works herself into a frenzy worrying about what she isn't--and perhaps loses track of just where she is.
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I'm certainly eclectic in my writing.
Jess Walter