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His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.

Jess Walter

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Jess Walter
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Spokane
Washington
Wonder
Forever
Lives
Two
Would
Life

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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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He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.
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He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.
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Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.
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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 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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At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?
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And if a moment exists only in one's perception anyway, then perhaps the rush of feeling he has now is THE MOMENT, and not merely its shadow.
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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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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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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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What business does memory have with time?
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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 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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If you come from money and you become an addict, you go to the Betty Ford Clinic, you get treatment. If you're living on the street and you're an addict, it's much harder to find your way out.
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Maybe it's ALWAYS the end of the world. Maybe you're alive for a while, and then you realize you're going to die, and that's such an insane thing to comprehend, you look around for answers and the only answer is that the world must die with you.
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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 think so, too. I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.
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The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25.
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