Padgett Powell Quotes

Life is a sandwich of activity between two periods of bed-wetting.

Even if you're the worst writer in the world, at least you'll have the evidence.

Writing books is a nice retreat. There's nothing quite like diving into a book for a few hours. That is a big time vacation.

That's part of fiction, creating a world better than the one you live in.

Cholesterol to go with alcohol; all the bad things in English-speaking life end in -ol.

Is a gesture of charity genuine or is it a kind of deep moral tax write-off?

I knew I was supposed to be a writer; I had made that declaration in the closet of my soul.

I don't know any more about America than one knows being trapped in it.

Conversations are the most direct way to connect with people.

Heavy booze is a big time vacation, but you come back with a headache.

If I tell you that I have robbed a bank, prepare the correct reaction.

disputing nothing is the first step through the difficult door of happiness

Christmas is the season I use to clock failure in life. It stops time, as it were, on the year - where you are in it, where you are in your travail unto the grave.

I associate the truest spirit of Christmas with certain years when I had to spend it at my parents' house as an adult who had, presumably, escaped.