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He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.

Jess Walter

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Jess Walter
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Spokane
Washington
Vast
Empty
Found
Live
People
Plateau
Contentment
Boredom

More quotes by Jess Walter

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All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!
Jess Walter
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And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking--how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe--Pasquale Tursi said, only, Yes.
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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.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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And even if they don't find what they're looking for, isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?
Jess Walter
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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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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.
Jess Walter
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He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.
Jess Walter
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Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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No one gets to tell you what your life means!
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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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.
Jess Walter
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If a police officer arrests a mime, does he need to tell him he has the right to remain silent.
Jess Walter
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I don't know a family that isn't touched by some sort of addiction.
Jess Walter