8 Quotes & Sayings By William Boyd

William Boyd was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended Columbia University and graduated with a degree in English Literature. He spent his early career writing for magazines including Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker, while concurrently developing his skills as a playwright. His first novel, The Iceman Cometh, was published in 1981 Read more

The novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and became a major Broadway hit the year after its publication. It has since been translated into thirteen languages, including Japanese and Latin. His second novel, Any Human Heart, won the William Dean Howells Memorial Award for fiction in 1985.

Boyd's work is often described as "collaborative" because he writes with numerous collaborators who help shape his vision of characters and plots.

1
Maybe we should go by tube', he said. A taxi'll come', she said. 'I'm in no hurry'. She remembered something a woman in Paris had told her once. A woman in her forties, much married, elegant, a little world-weary. There is nothing easier in this world, this woman had claimed, than getting a man to kiss you. Oh really? Eva had said, so how do you do that? Just stand close to a man, the woman has said, very close, as close as you can without touching - he will kiss you in one minute or two. It's inevitable. For them it's like an instinct - they can't resist. Infaillible.So Eva stood close to Romer in the doorway of the shop on Frith Street as he shooted and waved at the passing cars moving down the dark street, hoping one of them might be a taxi. We're out of luck', he said, turning, to find Eva standing very close to him, her face lifted. I'm in no hurry', she said. He reached for her and kissed her. . William Boyd
2
A warm sunny evening, the plash and gurgle of the waves in the rock pools, the rush of the cold gin. I thought for the first time of my novel, abandoned, all these years, and I came up, unprompted, with the perfect title. Octet. Octet by Logan Mountstuart. Perhaps I will surprise them all, yet. William Boyd
3
Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we've told? ('Lives' - the 'v' is silent.) William Boyd
4
Hot crumpets with butter and jam - what could be more ambrosial? William Boyd
5
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. William Boyd
6
Those of us who have the luck to enjoy good health forget about this vast parallel universe of the unwell-their daily miseries, their banal ordeals. Only when you cross that frontier into the world of ill-health do you recognize its quiet, massive presence, its brooding permanence. William Boyd
7
It was pleasant - and the sense of otherness was nice, that there were two people involved in this process, that we were each giving something to the other. William Boyd