Quotes from James Frey

A place is only as good as the people in it.

Learn to deal with that. It's the way of the world. You fight and struggle and work your ass off and then you die. Deal with that.

The Alcoholic's Dilemma. We drink because we feel pain. The drinking kills the pain. When the drink wears off we feel more pain, so we drink more to kill it, which makes us feel more, so we drink more. And thus it goes until you either stop or die. But stopping hurts too much. And so. And so. I go.

Some people think memoirs should be held to a perfect journalistic standard. Some people don't. Obviously I don't. My goal was never to create or to write a perfect journalistic standard of my life. It was always to be as literature.

Sometimes skulls are thick. Sometimes hearts are vacant. Sometimes words don't work.

Whatever hardships there have been in my life I still live in a very privileged position. Fear is not knowing where your next meal is coming from. Fear is seeing a child get hurt. Fear is watching someone you love waste away. Fear is knowing you are going to die yourself. But there's no fear in what I do. I write books.

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

I think as an artist or a writer it's OK to want to control your own work.

I'm just going to write my books and do my work and release it. Let the world decide what it is, and if it's any good or not.

I'm writing books. They're still a mix of fact and fiction and will continue to be. I think it's an interesting place to work.

I don't want to walk in the middle. I want people to read what I write and feel strongly about it. If, at some point, whatever I am doing is failing to elicit a response, whether it's very positive or very negative, then I am going to stop doing it.

My wife says I'm only comfortable when there's a fight. And it's true. The thing that motivates me is struggle.

I always wanted to be the outlaw. And that's to a certain extent how I've lived.

What someone calls my books is irrelevant to me. I consider them works of art and rules and categories and labels mean nothing.

The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone.

Dreams can come true there [Los Angeles]in ways impossible anywhere else, and they can get destroyed as well.

Faith is the fool's excuse.

And loss of control is always the source of fear. It is also, however, always the source of change.