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I was extremely shy. And I simply didn't know how to go about it. It seemed a lot easier to write than to make films. All I needed was a pencil and a piece of paper, whereas filmmaking was something I had no access to.

Paul Auster

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Paul Auster
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: February 3
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Film Director
Linguist
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Paul Benjamin
Paul Queen
Paul Benjamin Auster
Simply
Access
Write
Seemed
Didn
Piece
Film
Films
Pencil
Writing
Paper
Pencils
Something
Easier
Shy
Make
Pieces
Whereas
Needed
Extremely

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We are all aliens to ourselves, and if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others.
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Nothing lasts, you see, not even the thoughts inside you. And you musn't waste your time looking for them. Once a thing is gone, that is the end of it.
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For some reason, all my characters come to me with their names attached to them. I never have to search for the names.
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The fiction is not autobiographical. Maybe to some extent it is, of course.
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Often it's true that films just go right through us. You see the film, you might be entertained, and if it's not a great film, it loses its power very quickly. I think even simply acceptable books stay with us a lot longer.
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I think if we didn't contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.
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I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months.
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Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out.
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Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.
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I was very moved to see that the name of the boat was Hamlet - an imaginary character becomes so important to people, we think about them so much that we name a ship after them. The imaginary lives on in the real.
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I don't know why I write. If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't have to. But it is a compulsion. You don't choose it, it chooses you. And I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
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There are often references to childhood, but they're rarely the focus of the [my] novels.
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Cities - I'm attracted to them, and I have a special attachment to New York...it's my place.
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You're too good for this world, and because of that the world will eventually crush you.
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I believe that the whole idea of the consumer society is tottering. We've kept ourselves going by producing more and more goods, most of which people don't need. I'm anti-consumerism I own four pairs of black Levis and that's it.
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As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true.
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Something happens, Blue thinks, and then it goes on happening forever. It can never be changed, can never be otherwise.
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I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.
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Nobody asks you to do this. The world out there is not panting after another novelist. We choose it
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