Quotes from James Purdy

In a competitive society, the thing people fear the most is love.

Some people confess in the flesh, others on paper.

The worse the author, the more he is known.

Writing is like a battle. You're often so into it you don't have any high ideals. You're just doing it. I have all these boxing prints on my walls. I always feel that's what I am, a boxer. I get my brains knocked out every so often.

Most books don't even come into the world with the noise of the still-born.

The New York Times Review of Books is toilet paper. Used.

Never deprecate another person's sufferings even when imaginary.

Great books, if long enough and full of topical description and contemporary comment, were now coming into even wider public favor. The lengthier and fuller of comment, the better.

Why, if Daniel Haws was to take out his naked cock and shake it in your face, you'd die of apoplexy.

Mexican marijuana, which he called the schoolboy's consolation.

For imagine having somebody beside you day and night loving you and forgiving you and petting you forever and ever, that must be a better description of hell than being put into a boiling lake or cauldron of ice that burnt your black.

New York has collapsed.

She made no point of concealing the truth, for the truth was all she could bear now.

If the book's bad enough, they'll publish it, and if it's bad bad enough, the daily reviewers will love it, and it'll sell.

He's America in action — opposed to quality.

And yet Curt's a real writer too. His machinery is stuck, that's all.

Amos, talk about pearls for teeth ... you got 'em. No wonder the boys go for you, because I could too and if I had something to push between those pearly teeth I'd be first in line.

I don't think of people as queer or straight," the Doc said. "Not when you're as old as I. And I don't think God does either." "I didn't know you believed in God, Doc," Vance said.

I don't think I'd like it if people liked me, I'd think that something had gone wrong.

All you need do, Bernie,"she gulped her toast soaked in coffee, "is present the truth as fiction.

She was a church open only for him, with services in full operation twenty-four hours a day.

The last human of importance the American people have been able to keep in the working end of their brain is your own Chicago triggerman, Dillinger. After him they kind of lost hold on keeping who's who straight. So don't be surprised if they don't remember who Cabot Wright is, or if they do.

Reputations are made here as in Russia, on political respectability, or by commercial acceptability. The worse the author, the more he is known.

The to-dos were sordid rather than exciting, perhaps because nearly everybody was approaching middle age.