Rick Moody Quotes

I have worked really hard to defy categorization, to break down a taxonomy whenever it comes my way.

Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that.

The past was so past it hurt.

I think literature is best when it's voicing what we would prefer not to talk about.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.

Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.

It's also true, however, that having conquered the regional writer ghetto, I am now intent on conquering the nationalist writer ghetto and moving out into the world more.

I judged about a zillion awards this year so Ive been reading a lot of books that just came out.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

Major theme of the book ["Hotels of North America"], from my point of view: what is persona, what is self, in the digital sphere, and/or what is the effect of it on self in a prolonged interaction.

I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable.

People tend to be scared of what they can't see.

I turned forty, and Im finally going to get married and maybe have a kid.

Tangled in one another's arms and nine times out of ten the things you think about a person make it impossible to touch them.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

I sort of hate the novel when it doesn't push, restlessly, against the tradition and the traditional.

The Ice Storm, because of the movie, has had, or is to have, a vigorous life in other cultures.

My contention is that that style is just as stylized as an ornate style.

Sadness is simply something to be treated with antidepressant meds and otherwise need not be spoken of.

I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book, and then making up my own mind.

There’s something really rich and powerful in not talking about what you need to talk about sometimes.

God howls with laughter at earthly plans, you know?

I love comic books and always did as a kid.

I am excited by... the new novel by Samantha Hunt. She's a writer I really admire a lot.

The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice.

If I'm going to feel estranged and alienated and away from home I don't want anyone interrupting it to debate which berries to have in their pancakes.

I made this list of stuff that it's time for me to try to do.

I think first-person narrators should be complex, because otherwise the first-person is too shallow and predictable. I like a first-person narrator who can't totally be trusted.

I don't know exactly how long the book as we know it will exist, but I fully expect to make it to my death without having to give up on books.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

I have sparred with commenters as a music writer (on The Rumpus, among other places, see e.g., my review about Taylor Swift), and that was plenty of training!

I had a talk with the president of my publisher, and he averred that e-books are dropping off . So I wonder if the potential advantages are really going to happen as quickly as they ought.

I have admired Melissa Pritchard's writing for several years now for its wisdom, its humble elegance, and its earthy comedy.

I read a lot of 'The Canterbury Tales' on my phone last year, because I was cycling between three different editions, and I needed to have a middle-of-the-night edition for the insomniac reading.

I published a bunch of my older books in e-book format with Open Road, which is great and has tons of hard to find older books available there.

I'm not the guy to ask about the most up to date stuff.

Maybe when I'm sixty-five I'll talk about my literary life.

I always wanted to write something illustrated, and the Details strip finally gave me the opportunity.

Updike worked this way, and I just kinda borrowed it from him. So the memoir will be relief from novel writing for a moment.

I believe that God locates himself at the spot where you recognize your own fallibility....And the paradox of it all has been that whenever I give up I seem to do better.

In general, each form is a relief from the other forms. I can't write a novel after a novel. I just use up all the material each time, and I need to rest.

I am a better writer for having fewer demons, and I am more curious about the world and the people in it. So those of you thinking you might need your demons in order to be creative: I beg to differ.

[I]t is things that make us happy when conversation begins to reveal itself as a paltry substitute.

I am not that creative. And therefore you must be real.

The middle is the longest in any story, and therefore the time with the most desperation.

The thing you did to alleviate the loneliness was to take off your clothes and touch someone, even if you didn’t really know the person well.