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 We have missed him in the sunshine, in the storm, in the twilight, ever since. Paul Auster storm sunshine twilight No book includes the entire world. It's limited. And so it doesn't seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There's so much other material to write about. Paul Auster writing book world The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.' Paul Auster punishment reading book you can survive only if nothing is necessary to you Paul Auster ifs He slipped away slowly, withdrawing from this world by small, imperceptible degrees, and in the end it was as if he were a drop of water evaporating in the sun, shrinking and shrinking until at last he wasn’t there anymore. Paul Auster shrinking degrees water Money is the driving force of Hand to Mouth, the lack of money, and all those true stories about strange things in The Red Notebook, coincidences and unlikely events, surprise, the unexpected. Paul Auster notebook events hands All through my writing life I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works. Paul Auster writing-life impulse writing I guess of all those novels, Don DeLillo's Falling Man is the one I like the best. I thought there were some beautiful things in that, particularly the relationship between the man who finds the briefcase and the woman whose husband owned the briefcase. It's quite a beautiful passage. Paul Auster husband beautiful fall The only person I knew how to be with now was myself - but I wasn´t really anyone, and I wasn´t really alive. I was just someone who pretended to be alive, a dead mean who spent his days translating a dead man´s book. Paul Auster men mean book Memoirs have dominated the literary scene now for ten or 20 or even 30 years: most of them seem to use the conventions of fiction and it's astonishing how in so many of these books people seem to be able to remember conversations that took place when they were five years old and give three pages of coherent dialogue, which is utterly impossible. Paul Auster giving book years There are two kinds of typical days. There's the typical day when I'm writing a novel, and there's the typical day when I'm not. Paul Auster typical writing two I believe that the whole idea of the consumer society is tottering. We've kept ourselves going by producing more and more goods, most of which people don't need. I'm anti-consumerism; I own four pairs of black Levis and that's it. Paul Auster believe people ideas Some people are great, and they approach each work with honesty, and that's wonderful. But when people have built up a sort of resentment or animosity for reasons that are hard to put your finger on, they read in bad faith. Paul Auster resentment honesty people He knew that his wings could ignite at any moment, but the closer he came to touching the fire, the more he sensed that he was fulfilling his destiny. As he put it in his journal that night: If I mean to save my life, then I have to come within an inch of destroying it. Paul Auster destiny night mean Reason and memory are nearly always at odds. Paul Auster odds reason memories It's an ethical pact I've made with myself and with the reader - not to invent. And when I can't remember, I say I can't remember. I'm just appalled by the memoirs published by people who regurgitate dialogue, conversations from when they were small children, and they go on for three or four pages. I can't even remember what we said to each other ten minutes ago! How can I remember what was said sixty years ago? It's not possible. Paul Auster children people years I think that sense of unreality inspired me to write the story within the book that [August] Brill tells himself, one of the stories he tells himself. Paul Auster writing book thinking It's like a mathematical law, Grace. Paul Auster grace law science We hear things, but we can't always see them, or, even if we do see them, we're not sure that we're seeing correctly. Hence: Invisible. Paul Auster invisible seeing not-sure I guess the toughest things in translations are word play, which can never be reproduced exactly. Paul Auster translations play
