Quotes from James Richardson

I worked so hard to understand it that it must be true.

It never came down to two roads at all, or if it did, I took the one less traveled by for a driveway, or the entrance to a mall, or it slipped past like a station off the air while I bent down to fiddle with the dial.

And as for those who might have been following me, odds are I lost them long, long ago. Nothing to do but keep on driving as clearly as if I hadn't, flashing my change of lane and exit, in case there's anyone who needs to know.

and whatever happens to love that hasn't been used enough, has happened.

Beware of knowing your virtues; you may lose them. Beware of knowing your vices; you may forgive them.

As for my writing. I like it enough to keep going. I dislike it enough to keep going

Bitterness is a greater failure than failure

The best way to know your faults is to notice which ones you accuse others of.

Embarrassment is the greatest teacher, but since its lessons are exactly those we have tried hardest to conceal from ourselves, it may teach us, also, to perfect our self-deception.

A day is only a day. But a life is only a life.

There was nothing benign about segregation, nothing accidental.

She started reading novels to put herself in the way of secret lives.

The reader lives faster than life, the writer lives slower.

My best critic is me, too late.

I look over my old books, happiest when I find a line it seems I could not have written.

In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere.

a little run in the sheer black of the universe

When I am trying to write I turn on music so I can hear what is keeping me from hearing.

Tyranny and fantasy both like to write everyone else's lines.

The happy and the suffering probably understand life equally well, but the sufferers may see a little more clearly how little it is that they understand.

I'm a kid checking mail, a kid on his cell with his questions: are we in love, Life, are we exclusive, are we forever?

If you do more than your share you'd better want to: otherwise, you're paying yourself in a currency recognized nowhere else.

If it can be used again, it is not wisdom but theory.

Anger has been ready to be angry.