Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.
Paul Beatty
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Paul Beatty
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 1
Author
Novelist
Poet
LA
California
Changing
Changed
Write
Change
Writing
Trying
Work
World
More quotes by Paul Beatty
Well, it's not all the same, but there are a lot of parallels. I'm not sure how to answer [on psychology background], but I think when I was studying psychology I had a professor and a friend who would talk about process all the time. Your process, his process, the group's process. There's some carryover from that discussion to my creative wor
Paul Beatty
All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.
Paul Beatty
I remember going to see Amiri Baraka. It wasn't actually too long before he died. He said, You've got to write to change the world! I was like, Not me, no, no, no, no.
Paul Beatty
I just rode cross-country and the thing I noticed is just how afraid everyone is, and how nervous and scared and angry people are. From my point of view, I don't think it's all necessarily justified, but I think that's easy for me to say.
Paul Beatty
I'm not searching for the truth.That's too much pressure .
Paul Beatty
It's all the same for me, how I teach, how I write, how I think.
Paul Beatty
I had a student once come up to me and we were talking about this incident, and, of course, I never had the right thing to say. But later on, I realized I should have said: Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.
Paul Beatty
There are always so many things happening [to us] at one time. We read Isherwood's A Single Man in class, and we had to ask: How is he talking about all this stuff: teaching, being lonely, all his memories, all at the same time? He's telling us: This is where my head is at, let me be straightforward. And of course, try be artful about it.
Paul Beatty
I forget how beautiful and calm California is. It's not so much about the place, but also the age that I came to the place and, well, other things. New York is hard.
Paul Beatty
Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.
Paul Beatty
That's such a great book [Bloods]. That's a perfect way to articulate this thing that we're talking about. Just because someone is a black general, doesn't mean this person is going to have a certain outlook on it.
Paul Beatty
I think, and a lot of that has to do with where I grew up in California [status] isn't something I think about that much.
Paul Beatty
There are things I don't like, like sitting at the head of the class. It makes me uncomfortable. I'll do it in a seminar if I have to, but with a workshop, I try to put myself in the circle somewhere. Because that hopefully frees up some people by making somebody else sit at the nominal head of the table.
Paul Beatty
I'm hugely honored [with the Man Booker Prize].
Paul Beatty
There are certain things that happen in New York that just don't happen anywhere else.
Paul Beatty
The anger and fear are so global. And of course, we live where we live and there's a hierarchy to who is worth what. It's been going on for a long, long time.
Paul Beatty
It's so hard to say what you really mean. For any number of reasons: to protect yourself, or if you just can't find the words.
Paul Beatty
I'm healthier in California, probably a little happier, maybe.
Paul Beatty
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
Paul Beatty
There are many similarities between Germans and blacks. The nouns themselves are loaded with so much historical baggage it's impossible for anyone to be indifferent to the simple mention of either group. We're two insightful people looking for reasons to love ourselves and let's not forget we both love pork and wear sandals with socks.
Paul Beatty
