A Quote by Paul Auster

I'm not a boy-writer, I've never been. I wanted to be a boy-writer when I was young, and I think that held me back. I wanted to be very clever, and funny, but I'm not very clever and not terribly funny. I've finally accepted my limits, and I do what I can do.

Paul Auster

Quote Topics

Accepted Back Been Boy Clever Finally Funny Held Limits Me Never Terribly Think Very Very Clever Wanted Writer Young

Quote Author

Paul Auster
American - Author
Born: February 3, 1947

Before 'Sunny' came along, I would audition and do chemistry reads with very funny actors. And then they would cast someone who was beautiful and benign. I don't think that very funny men wanted to headline with very funny women. They wanted to be the funny ones, and they wanted the wife to be the wife. That was very frustrating.

Kaitlin Olson

Well, first you have to be very, very funny. I have realized that it is essential for a boy to be funny. Otherwise, what is the point in a boy?

Jaclyn Moriarty

I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers.

Patrick Ness

I think that Obama is very cool. And I think he's clever, and I think he can be witty. But I don't think he's funny in either the way that Reagan was funny - or John McCain and Dick Cheney are both funny in that ruthless, kind of mean way.

Mo Rocca

I wanted to be clever, but being funny came first. That's how you know someone is clever. They don't come out and tell you pi to 13 places - they tell you a joke.

Ricky Gervais

Alafair Burke understands the criminal mind. Long Gone is both an education and an entertainment of the first order. This is a very clever and very smart novel by a very clever and smart writer. The dialogue crackles, the plot is intriguing, and the pacing is perfect.

Karin Slaughter

Even more than getting compliments on social media, what I love is when some random stranger says something very funny or insightful about my books, often in 140 characters or less! It's a very casual, low-stakes, non-burdensome way of connecting that I think is fun for both the writer and the reader. And there are a lot of clever people out there who have no connection to publishing.

Curtis Sittenfeld

Pickup lines never work...I think someone clever, witty and funny is very attractive.

Kate Upton

It's been nice not having a boyfriend. I could be in a relationship if I wanted to be, but I haven't finished doing what I'm doing. I like boy, a lot. I'm boy crazy. That hasn't changed since I was very young.

Cameron Diaz

My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty.

Ian Hislop

I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes?

Patrick Ness

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

Judy Blundell

I never wanted to be a celebrity writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I'm still trying to be a good writer. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning.

Thomas McGuane

There is and always has been for me a peculiar need to write. This is very different from wanting to be a writer. To be a writer always seemed something so far removed from my talents and abilities and imaginings that it didn't afflict me at all as a notion when I was young. But I was always conscious that I wanted to write.