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Walter Kirn Biography

Walter Kirn (born August 3, 1962) is an American novelist, literary critic, and essayist. He is the author of eight books, most notably Up in the Air, which was made into a film of the same name starring George Clooney.

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Walter Kirn Quotes

The market is the only critic that matters.

Commerce, Critic, Critics, Market, Matter, Matters

The most beautiful faces have some ugly in them.

Beautiful, Faces, Ugly

My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.

Book, Close, Dream, New York, People, Talking

A writer has a use for his experiences that most civilians simply don't; he or she discerns material in situations that others simply live through. Perhaps there are some who disapprove of this, but without this double consciousness, literature would not get made at all.

Consciousness, Discerns, Literature, Simply, Use

To apologize for your personal absolutes, for what Sandy Pinter calls your “Core Attachments,” means apologizing for your very existence.

Absolutes, Apologize, Apologizing, Attachment, Core, Mean

I preferred that my bad dreams be vague.

Bad Dream, Dream, Dreams, Preferred, Vague

realized that at a level I'd never been conscious we'd been engaged in a game of wits for years. I suppose most writer-subject pairings are like that. Of course, I'd set aside my plan to write about him [Clark Rockfeller] as soon as I'd gotten to know him some, but now I'd resumed that intention.

Clark, Games, Level, Like, Writing, Years

Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?

Enemies, Enemy, Hate, Learn, Love You, Memo

When Loughner himself speaks and we find out his real influences are Spiderman, 'Gnome Chomsky,' Taylor Swift, and Dr. Bronner, then what?

Drs, Gnome, Influence, Influences, Real, Swift

I still believe in love. I always will. It's my blessing and my burden.

Believe, Blessing, Burden

've always defined a truly alluring story as a journey we're not equipped to take ourselves with a person we're tempted but afraid to emulate. Impostor narratives are exactly that. When they end in disaster, as Clark's did, or as Gatsby's did, we can congratulate ourselves for our own wisdom. We can also experience, safely, at no cost, the terrible thrill of radical self-invention, of trading who we are for who we might be.

Impostor, Journey, Might, Radical, Self, Take

It's no accident that most self-help groups use 'anonymous' in their names; to Americans, the first step toward redemption is a ritual wiping out of the self, followed by the construction of a new one.

Accident, Names, Redemption, Self, Wiping, Wiping Out

I disagree that Blood Will Out is a memoir in the conventional sense. It's the story of a relationship, primarily, not an individual. The "me" in the book is a specialized version of me, the person who Clark manipulated and fooled. I could cover the same years of my life from an entirely different perspective in another book, by concentrating on my experience as a husband, say. But I was selective. I focused on my duping.

Blood, Book, Cover, Focused, Fooled, Husband

What was more humiliating, I wondered: having to beg for someone's cold chicken bones or being offered them?

Beg, Bones, Chickens, Cold

Sometimes, when a person is truly lost in this world, suffocating inside her private bubble where all she can hear is her own droning heartbeat, a touch can be enough.

Bubble, Heartbeat, Lost, Sometimes, World

At the beginning of a novel, a writer needs confidence, but after that what's required is persistence. These traits sound similar. They aren't. Confidence is what politicians, seducers and currency speculators have, but persistence is a quality found in termites. It's the blind drive to keep on working that persists after confidence breaks down.

Found, Persistence, Quality, Similar, Sound, Speculators

I've been told my old city possesses a 'thriving arts scene,' whatever that is; personally, I think artists should lie low and stick to their work, not line-dance through the parks.

Art, Lie, Lying, Possesses, Thinking, Thriving

The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.

Draw, Level, Levels, Lines, Potent, Who We Are

The best critic needn't be right, just interesting.

Critic, Critics, Interesting, Right

A writer turns his life into material, and if you’re in his life, he uses yours, too.

Material, Materials, Turns, Use, Writer

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Walter Kirn Biography

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