As my friend George Oppen once said to me about getting old: what a strange thing to happen to a little boy. Paul Auster More Quotes by Paul Auster More Quotes From Paul Auster To tell you the truth, I'm not unhappy about it. I'm not even sure that I like the idea of adapting novels into films. It's very difficult to do, and it usually doesn't work. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, one feels disappointed with the result. Paul Auster film unhappy ideas The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth. Paul Auster writing trying fiction It's always a mystery to me, I have to confess. I've never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there's nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. Paul Auster next able ideas I've been very lucky in this second marriage. It's just luck. It's absolute luck. And I can only marvel at it. So many other things could have happened that didn't, so overall I feel blessed. Paul Auster second-marriage luck blessed When the publisher here in America wanted to put the word "memoir" on the title page [of 'Winter Journal'] and on the cover, I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no." No genre whatsoever. It's an independent work not really connected to those things at all. Paul Auster independent winter america I have to say in premise 'Winter Journal' is really not a memoir. And I don't even think of it as an autobiography. I think of it as a literary composition - similar to music - composed of autobiographical fragments. I'm really not telling the story of my life in a coherent narrative form. Paul Auster stories winter thinking This is very rare for anyone in life to pursue something and that thing being the thing you actually most want to do. It's all about the inner, rather than the outer. Whether people like or don't like my work, read it or don't read it, it's just been a gift from the gods that I've been able to sit at my desk for the last almost 50 years and do the things I've wanted to do. Paul Auster want people years In a sense I am able to interrogate myself, address myself from that slight distance and enter a kind of dialogical relationship with myself. Because I'm saying, "Look, these are things that have happened to me, but how odd they are or how ordinary they are [is up to the reader to decide]." Paul Auster distance ordinary looks What if I had been born during a war and I lived in an occupied city, and people were being taken out and shot every day? Everything would be different - even after the war ended, my future would be very different. Look at what these poor people in Aleppo are going through. The children, the ones who survive, are going to be absolutely altered by what they live through, and you and I, luckily, have never had to deal with that. Paul Auster taken war children I've been asked several times over the years to become president, and I've always said no, because I didn't want to give up all the time from my work. The position won't be open for another year, but if they still want me then, I'll do it; I'll speak out as often as I can from that platform. Paul Auster giving-up speak president I believe that every artist, in one way or another, is a wounded person. It's not natural to make art. Paul Auster believe way art It's a mind going over things, revisiting things, maybe trying to refine the original perception. You have to keep going a thing over in order to make sense off it. Paul Auster perception mind order I thought, "Well, I'm writing about early childhood, so maybe it would make sense to write about late childhood as well, early adulthood." Those were my thoughts, and this was how this crazy book [Winter Journal] was composed. I've never seen a book with pictures like at the end, pictures related to things you've read before. Paul Auster crazy writing book Most people are participating in the grand adventure of living with one another. Paul Auster participating adventure people For example, when I was writing Leviathan, which was written both in New York and in Vermont - I think there were two summers in Vermont, in that house I wrote about in Winter Journal, that broken-down house... I was working in an out-building, a kind of shack, a tumble-down, broken-down mess of a place, and I had a green table. I just thought, "Well, is there a way to bring my life into the fiction I'm writing, will it make a difference?" And the fact is, it doesn't make any difference. It was a kind of experiment which couldn't fail. Paul Auster new-york summer writing I thought I was terrible [to play a cameo] and decided never to act again. Paul Auster cameos terrible play I use things, I steal things from my life when I want to, when I need to, or when it seems appropriate. But most of the stuff in my novels is entirely invented, ninety-five percent. And even when I do borrow something, it becomes fictionalized. Paul Auster use want needs You can look at my autobiographical pieces as source books... But, you see, my fiction doesn't revolve around autobiographical questions. Paul Auster book looks fiction It would be a terrible world if everyone was an artist. Nothing would get done! Paul Auster done artist would-be There are often references to childhood, but they're rarely the focus of the [my] novels. Paul Auster childhood novel focus
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