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Reason leavened with a little wit (if possible) is the real alternative to hate speech, meaning that there's no better time for it.

Walter Kirn

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Walter Kirn
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: August 3
Novelist
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Better
Wit
Little
Alternatives
Real
Speech
Time
Meaning
Possible
Hate
Littles
Reason
Alternative

More quotes by Walter Kirn

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The best critic needn't be right, just interesting.
Walter Kirn
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realized that at a level I'd never been conscious we'd been engaged in a game of wits for years. I suppose most writer-subject pairings are like that. Of course, I'd set aside my plan to write about him [Clark Rockfeller] as soon as I'd gotten to know him some, but now I'd resumed that intention.
Walter Kirn
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The best anti-depressant pill for me would be one the size of a house so you could drop it on me and put me out of my misery.
Walter Kirn
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It looked like just the sort of family Americans dream of having: dumb and loving.
Walter Kirn
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Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.
Walter Kirn
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Love is a powerful painkiller.
Walter Kirn
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The market is the only critic that matters.
Walter Kirn
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I feel like my head is finally the right size. I feel like it finally fits around my mind.
Walter Kirn
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Most writers' view of the New West is either phony - obsessed with the same tired mythology - or it's obsessed with anti-mythology, ... There's not a lot of realistic, observant writing about the West right now.
Walter Kirn
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The strange anthropological lesson of social media is that human beings, if given a choice, often prefer to socialise alone.
Walter Kirn
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I still believe in love. I always will. It's my blessing and my burden.
Walter Kirn
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Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.
Walter Kirn
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Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?
Walter Kirn
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You thought you were found but you realize that you were lost, and someday you may discover that you're lost now.
Walter Kirn
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Some strangers become more important to you than family, maybe because you're not expected to love them. You can leave them whenever you want to. They can, too. Every moment together is a choice.
Walter Kirn
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At the beginning of a novel, a writer needs confidence, but after that what's required is persistence. These traits sound similar. They aren't. Confidence is what politicians, seducers and currency speculators have, but persistence is a quality found in termites. It's the blind drive to keep on working that persists after confidence breaks down.
Walter Kirn
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In the age of networked everything, life moves sideways and covers lots of ground while barely touching the earth.
Walter Kirn
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Just breathing can be such a luxury sometimes.
Walter Kirn
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Quiet cunning bested boastful brawn
Walter Kirn
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To apologize for your personal absolutes, for what Sandy Pinter calls your “Core Attachments,” means apologizing for your very existence.
Walter Kirn