Sam Lipsyte Professions : Novelist Born : 1968 Browse All Authors Top 30 quotes by Sam Lipsyte Wesley Stace has always been the only genuinely gifted fiction writer who also happens to be a rock star, but Wonderkid is the book he was born to write. And if you prefer your novels brazen, poignant and hilarious, as I do, you were born to read it. Like a great show, this will stay with you long after the last cymbal crash and power strum. Sam Lipsyte stars writing book I'm a citizen of the republic of empathy. Sam Lipsyte republic empathy citizens I bought an energy bar, and as I ate it a great weariness came over me. Sam Lipsyte weariness bars energy I am a writer who is definitely working with a specific language and more than English, that language is American. And I work very much in idiom and am very interested in the play of different kinds of rhetoric, whether it is the more high-flown stuff that reeks of age. I love to juxtapose something like that with something more current or urgent. I am always interested not in America by itself, but America as an idea and how that idea has changed over time, in the eyes of the rest of the world and in the eyes of Americans. Sam Lipsyte different eye age Write what you know. Write what you don't know. But most of all, write what you'd rather not know. Sam Lipsyte knows writing This country was built on the backs of dudes who drank on buses. What we do honors them. Sam Lipsyte bus honor country One of my big revelations was that nobody cares whether you write your novel or not. They want you to be happy. Your parents want you to have health insurance. Your friends want you to be a good friend. But everyone’s thinking about their own problems and nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘Boy, I sure hope Sam finishes that chapter and gets one step closer to his dream of being a working writer.’ Nobody does that. If you want to write, it has to come from you. If you don’t want to write, that’s great. Go do something else. That was a very liberating moment for me. Sam Lipsyte dream writing morning I had a teacher once who said, "If you are going to write fiction, you should only read poetry." I have always been interested in the writers who care about their sentences and who really work on that level. I have always said that I hate writing, I love revision. So, the language is really important to me. And the comedy and the horror that come out of the language. Sam Lipsyte hate writing teacher I felt as though I were snorting cocaine, or rappelling down a cliffside, or cliffsurfing off a cliff of pure cocaine. Sam Lipsyte rappelling cliffs cocaine Yes, we could solve for why, but we could also eat another slice of coconut cake. Sam Lipsyte coconuts solve cake You could touch for a couple of bucks. The window of the booth went up and you stuck out the bills. They might tell you not to pinch, but I was a stroke type anyway. Some guys, I guess they want to leave a mark. Me, I just like the feel. Sam Lipsyte guy couple want When a translator translates my book, it is no longer just my book. It is the translator's book, too. So the book in another language is almost the work of two people. And that is quite interesting to me. Sam Lipsyte book people interesting Shudder, in fact, is not quite the word for the feeling. Feeling is not quite the word for the feeling. How's bathing at knifepoint in the phlegm of the dead? Is that a feeling? Sam Lipsyte bathing feelings facts When you work at home, fellow alums, discipline is the supreme virtue. Suicidal self-loathing lurks behind every coffee break. Activities must be expertly scheduled, from shopping to showers to panic attacks. Sam Lipsyte suicidal coffee home You think you know yourself, the world. You believe you've got a bead on everybody else's bullshit, but what about your own? Sam Lipsyte bullshit believe thinking The translator has to be a good writer. The translator has to hear music too. And it might not be exactly your music because the translator needs to translate the music. And so, that is what you are hoping for: a translator who gets what you are doing but who also gets all the ways in which it won't work in the new language. Sam Lipsyte translate music-is language The bullshit never ends. That’s the main thing to remember. It never ends. Sam Lipsyte bullshit ends remember No emotion or insight is too small to inflict on the world. Let it all fly. Don't let it eat you from the inside. Sam Lipsyte insight emotion world Stuff me in a tutu and let's screen experimental videos all day. Sam Lipsyte screens video stuff Art is an artifice that you try to make seem natural. Sam Lipsyte natural trying art Similar Authors Adam Johnson novelist Ivan Goncharov novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum novelist Bruce Jay Friedman novelist Buchi Emecheta novelist Bryce Courtenay novelist All Authors
