5 Quotes & Sayings By Robert Olen Butler

Robert Olen Butler is an author and professor of English and American literature at Yale University. He is the winner of a National Book Award for Fiction for his novel A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. The novel was named one of the best books of the year by several noted publications, including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and Harper's Magazine. His other novels include Manhattan Beach, Disturbing the Peace, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain Read more

His nonfiction books include Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace; The Civil War: A Narrative; and The Meaning of Race: Origins of an Epidemic. He is also the author of two volumes of cultural criticism: On Second Thought: Essays on Writing; and Creative Recovery: Finding Meaning in Dark Times.

1
And William says, "I lost one son utterly."..."So I've held my tongue. But the truth is you didn't go to war. You went through the motions. But you turned it into graduate school. You contrived a comfortable place on the edge of the action to go study. You didn't even let the army decide your fate. You wangled your safe little job with a pre-enlistment deal and avoided the real thing. You told all the others who manned up, 'Better you do the dirty work, not me. Better your blood than mine. Robert Olen Butler
2
The monitor presently shows the Windows Blue Screen of Death, though this does not alarm him, as the BSoD is the universal screen saver in Hell. Robert Olen Butler
3
And so, given the musical sensibilities Hatcher treasured in his earthly life, it is hard to exaggerate the severity of his torture at standing naked in his tiny kitchen in Hell as former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sings a Bee Gees disco song backed by a full studio orchestra and Robin and Maurice. Robert Olen Butler
4
The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing, because we want to flinch. The artist must go into the white hot center of himself, and our impulse when we get there is to look away and avert our eyes. Robert Olen Butler