Paul Auster quotes - page 3

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don't know what you're doing. (Paul Auster)
Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead. View quote
Paul Auster
No book includes the entire world. It's limited. And so it doesn't seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There's so much other material to write about. View quote
Paul Auster
Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people - more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true - in certain rare, isolated cases. View quote
Paul Auster
Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years. View quote
Paul Auster
Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing. View quote
Paul Auster
I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went. View quote
Paul Auster
I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table. View quote
Paul Auster
You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one. View quote
Paul Auster
Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience. View quote
Paul Auster
It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do. (Paul Auster)
If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything. View quote
Paul Auster
Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them. View quote
Paul Auster
There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round. View quote
Paul Auster
Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head. View quote
Paul Auster
One should never underestimate the power of books. View quote
Paul Auster
You can't put your feet on the ground until you've touched the sky. View quote
Paul Auster
Every man is the author of his own life. View quote
Paul Auster
I believe that the whole idea of the consumer society is tottering. We've kept ourselves going by producing more and more goods, most of which people don't need. I'm anti-consumerism; I own four pairs of black Levis and that's it. View quote
Paul Auster
People who don't like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that's how life is. View quote
Paul Auster
Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don't know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don't know. I really don't know. (Paul Auster)
In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose. View quote
Paul Auster
We all want to believe in impossible things, I suppose, to persuade ourselves that miracles can happen. View quote
Paul Auster
You tend to feel very hurt when people attack you and feel indifferent when you get praise. You think, 'Of course they like it. They should like it.' View quote
Paul Auster
I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs. View quote
Paul Auster