Stranger Than Fiction 2 csillagozás

Mirrors are only the methadone of bodybuilding. You need a real audience. There’s that joke: How many bodybuilders does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Three – one to screw in the bulb and two to say, “Really, dude, you look massive!”
Yeah, that joke. It’s not really a joke.

[Frontiers]

So this is why I write.
Because most times, your life isn’t funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it. […]
All those years you write and write. You sit in the dark and say, someday. A book contract. A jacket photo. A book tour. A Hollywood movie. And someday you get them, and it’s not how you planned. Then you get the screenplay for your book in the mail, and it says: “Fight Club by Jim Uhls.” He’s the screenwriter. Way underneath that, in parentheses, it says: Based on the novel by you. That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can’t control life, at least you can control your version.

[Almost California]

You want to be happy? You want to be at peace? You want to be healthy?
As any good writer would tell you: unpack „happy.” What does it look like? How can you demonstrate happiness on the page — that vague, abstract concept. Show, don't tell. Show me „happiness.”
In this way, learning to write means learning to look at yourself and the world in extreme close-up. If nothing else, maybe learning how to write will force us to take a closer look at everything, to really see it — if only in order to reproduce it on a page.
Maybe with a little more effort and reflection, you can live the kind of life story a literary agent would want to read.

[You Are Here]

“The only fear I have left is the fear of not being able to create, of not having inspiration,” Manson says.
“I may fail, and this may not work but at least I’m choosing to do it. It’s not something I’m doing because I’m stuck with it.”

[Reading Yourself]

The only thing worse than showing up at LAX ugly is showing up ugly but showing signs that you really tried to look good. You gave it your best effort but this is the best you could do. Your hair’s cut and skin’s tanned, your teeth are flossed and the hair in your nose is tweezed, but you still look ugly. You’re wearing a 100 percent cotton casual knit shirt from the Gap. You gargled. You used eyedrops and deodorant, but you still come off the plane missing a few chromosomes.
That wasn’t going to happen to me.
The idea was to make sure nobody thought I was even trying to look good.

[Almost California]

I’m sorry if this all seems a little rushed and desperate.
It is.

[Brinksmanship]

We see our lives in terms of storytelling conventions. Our serial marriages become sequels. Our childhood: our prequel. Our children: spin-offs.

30. oldal (Anchor Books, 2004)

Another friend – I'll call her Brenda – says she can see the future. Over dinner, she'll ruin your best story by suddenly drawing a huge gasp, covering her mouth with her hand, and rearing back in her chair with a look of wide-eyed terror on her face. When you ask what's wrong, she'll say, „Oh. . . nothing, really.” Then close her eyes and try to shake the terrible vision from her mind.
When you persist, she'll take your hand in hers and beg you, „Please, please. Just stay away from automobiles for the next six years.”

110. oldal (Anchor Books, 2004)

„I want to do a line of toys called "The Better Tomorrow Toys”. They’re going to be designed so that if a child had an IQ below a certain level, they wouldn’t survive the toy. So you weed out the gene pool at a young age. Stupid kids are not nearly as dangerous as stupid adults, so let’s take them out when they’re young. I know it sounds cruel, but it’s reasonable expectation.”

173. oldal (Anchor Books, 2004)

Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and happier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.

229. oldal (Anchor Books, 2004)