Ruby > Ruby's Quotes

“One must dare to be happy. ”
― Gertrude Stein

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“Stories are bulls. Writers come of age full of vigor, and they feel the need to drive the old stories from the herd. One bull rules the herd awhile but then he loses his vigor and the young bulls take over.

Stories are nations, empires. They can last as long as ancient Rome or as short as the Third Reich. Story-nations rise and decline. Governments change, trends rise, and they go on conquering their neighbors.

Stories are people. I'm a story, you're a story . . . your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we're lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we're less alone.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“If you want to write a negative review, don't tickle me gently with your aesthetic displeasure about my work. Unleash the goddamn Kraken."

[on Twitter, July 17, 2012]”
― Scott Lynch