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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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Jess Walter
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Spokane
Washington
Writing
Late
Think
Fiction
Thinking
Teach
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Teens
Stories
Twenties
Ever
Wrote
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Early
First
Short
More quotes by Jess Walter
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
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.
Jess Walter
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.
Jess Walter
His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.
Jess Walter
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
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.
Jess Walter
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
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
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.'
Jess Walter
Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.
Jess Walter
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.
Jess Walter
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
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
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.
Jess Walter
I'm certainly eclectic in my writing.
Jess Walter
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
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
No one gets to tell you what your life means!
Jess Walter
He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.
Jess Walter
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
