A Quote by T. C. Boyle

I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels. — © T. C. Boyle
I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels.
Writing short stories was kind of like I was cheating the whole time, in some way. I went back and forth between writing the novels and sort of sneaking out to work on stories occasionally. These stories were written over the last 10 years or so, as I was taking breaks from the novels I've written.
Canada is like several puzzles that we are all working on at the same time. Everyone has a part to add, but no one has seen the whole picture yet.
I still read romance, and I read suspense. I read them both. And part of it is, I like stories with strong characters, and I like stories where there's closure at the end. And I like stories where there's hope. That's a kind of empowerment. I think romance novels are very empowering, and I think suspense novels are, too.
I started to write my own stories, like small novels, and those novels became poems, and after poems, they became lyrics, and song came from that.
Traditionally, people have been adapting novels and short stories forever. Now, they're doing it simultaneously, with an eye towards writing the movie before the novel has even come out or been finished. It's a function of this hyper-accelerated society we live in, where everyone is trying to short circuit the process.
We've all heard stories about poker players grinding it out for two days straight. Believe me; I've got stories like that of my own. But the bottom line is that these stories usually don't have great endings. That's because the mind starts playing tricks after a marathon poker session, especially after a losing session.
I prefer reading novels. Short stories are too much like daggers. And now that I'm done with my collection I'm more interested in different forms of writing and other kinds of narrative art. I'm working on a screenplay. But when I was working on Eileen, I definitely felt like I was taking a piss. Like, here I am, typing on my computer, writing the "novel." It wasn't that it was insincere, but there was a kind of farcical feeling I had when I was writing.
When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.
I love to write. I write everything across the board - kids' stories and novels and scripts. I actually would like to give that a go; I'd like to try to be a writer.
For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance.
The mind always functions in an eccentric way, the mind is always an idiot. The really intelligent person has no mind. Intelligence arises out of no-mind, idiocy out of the mind. Mind is idiotic, no-mind is wise. No-mind is wisdom, intelligence. Mind depends on knowledge, on methods, on money, on experience, on this and that. Mind always needs props, it needs supports, it cannot exist on its own. On its own, it flops.
A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.
Women are like puzzles because prior to 1920 neither had the right to vote. Puzzles still don't.
I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.
Everyone has their own right to their own point of view and everyone has their own perception of everything and everyone doesn't have to love me, obviously, but I just think that it's too much when people say that they want you to die and it can be so dark and mean.
I'm inspired by dreams and shadows, obsession and desire. By nature, I'm a dream collector and never stop working. I question people about their weirdest dreams and the strangest, most inexplicable experiences they've had. All this information whirls around in my mind, and new dreams emerge that form the seeds of stories and novels.
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