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We live in a world of banal miracles.Jess Walter
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All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell.Jess Walter
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He found himself inhabiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.Jess Walter
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Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.Jess Walter
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What business does memory have with time?Jess Walter
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Two kinds of people always lie about their ages: actresses and Latin American pitchers.Jess Walter
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He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.Jess Walter
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Always speak first to the toughest person in the room.Jess Walter
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All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character--what we believe--none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!Jess Walter
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This is a love story, Michael Deane says. But, really, what isn’t? Doesn’t the detective love the mystery, or the chase, or the nosy female reporter, who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely the serial murderer loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck, and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk just as the Housewives live for catching glimpses of their own Botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors, and the rocked-out dude on ‘roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on Hookbook, and because this is reality, they are all in love–madly, truly–with the body mic clipped to their back buckle, and the producer casually suggesting just one more angle, one more Jell-O shot. And the robot loves his master, alien loves his saucer, Superman loves Lois, Lex, and Lana, Luke love Leia (till he finds out she’s his sister), and the exorcist loves the demon even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace, as Leo loves Kate and they both love the sinking ship, and the shark– God, the shark loves to eat, which is what the Mafioso loves, too–eating and money and Paulie and omerta` --the way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar, and sometimes loves the other cowboy, as the vampire loves night and neck, and the zombie–don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool; has anyone ever been more lovesick than a zombie, that pale, dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms, his very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains? This, too, is a love story. .Jess Walter
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The movie I was working on, "Cleopatra", it's about how destructive a force love can be. But maybe that's what every story is about.Jess Walter
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Erhaps it was the difference in age between the countries– America with its expansive youth, building all those drive-in movie theaters and cowboy restaurants; Italians living in endless contraction, in the artifacts of generations, in the bones of empires.Jess Walter
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He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.Jess Walter
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Ideas are sphincters. Every asshole has one. Your take is what counts.Jess Walter
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And while his mother's lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant--how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.Jess Walter
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I guess I forgot we were going out tonight."" We always go out on Fridays.""It's Thursday, Alvis.""You are so tied to routine.Jess Walter
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Use beautiful to describe a sandwich, and the word means nothing.Jess Walter
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Weren't movies his generation's faith anyway--its true religion? Wasn't the theater our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral?...what was that but a religion?Jess Walter
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Put the fire out? Hell no. What we need to do is stoke it.Jess Walter