Quote

I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

Tom Perrotta

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tom Perrotta
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: August 13
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Garwood
New Jersey
Kids
School
Suburban
Writing
Schools
Things
Experiences
Parents
Parent
Growing
Write

More quotes by Tom Perrotta

Image
I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.
Tom Perrotta
Image
It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I was also known as Frodo because I was an early adopter of 'The Lord of the Rings.
Tom Perrotta
Image
A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.
Tom Perrotta
Image
When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.
Tom Perrotta
Image
Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.
Tom Perrotta
Image
After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they’d actually made some sort of choice.
Tom Perrotta
Image
It felt good, the whole family together on a sunny morning in a wholesome environment. If it hadn't been for the warshiping God part, he would have happily attended church on a regular basis.
Tom Perrotta
Image
It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.
Tom Perrotta
Image
My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.
Tom Perrotta
Image
They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.
Tom Perrotta
Image
Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.
Tom Perrotta
Image
From a distance, it makes perfect sense that the people and the things you think will save you are the very ones that have the power to disappoint you most bitterly, but up close it can hit you as a bewildering surprise.
Tom Perrotta
Image
I was an English major in college, I went to a creative-writing program, and all my life, I really read and thought about fiction as a craft and an art form. I feel like I know a lot about it, and can trust my instincts.
Tom Perrotta
Image
Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.
Tom Perrotta