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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.

Jess Walter

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Jess Walter
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Spokane
Washington
First
Sent
Made
Total
Years
Wrote
Seven
Novel
Fiction
Stories
Firsts

More quotes by 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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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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I come from a newspaper background, so maybe Im attuned to current events.
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I don't know a family that isn't touched by some sort of addiction.
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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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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 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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No one gets to tell you what your life means!
Jess Walter
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The stories tend to be what I work on when I'm stuck. Something will just pop into my head and I'll think that's more of a story.
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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All we have is the story we tell.
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?
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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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What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?
Jess Walter
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What business does memory have with time?
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've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in your life.
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 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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Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.
Jess Walter