I think what's really hard is making sense and making what you write clear and smooth-flowing. Roy Blount, Jr. More Quotes by Roy Blount, Jr. More Quotes From Roy Blount, Jr. Pete Rose is too rich a character to fit on a bronze plaque. He requires a good, trenchant, poignant (ah, Petey) book, and this is it. Roy Blount, Jr. rose character book I think writer's block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible. But as a writer, I believe that if you sit down at the keys long enough, sooner or later something will come out. Roy Blount, Jr. block inspiration believe People may think of Southern humor in terms of missing teeth and outhouse accidents, but the best of it is a rich vein running through the best of Southern literature. Roy Blount, Jr. running people thinking I prefer my oysters fried; that way I know my oysters died. Roy Blount, Jr. died oysters way Perhaps the truth is that heavy literature blooms in extremes of temperature. Roy Blount, Jr. temperature truth-is literature Anyone who undertakes the literary grind had better like playing around with words. Roy Blount, Jr. playing-around grind Being president of too many well-meaning organizations put my father into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me. Roy Blount, Jr. organization president father Think about scary movies: There's a fine line between horror and humor. Roy Blount, Jr. lines scary thinking I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is. Roy Blount, Jr. italian college school I like weeding, but I tend to think of it as a solitary activity. Roy Blount, Jr. solitary weed thinking I just think lots of words have physicality. How about the word 'wobble?' You think that's arbitrary? When you say the word 'wince,' you wince. How about that? Roy Blount, Jr. wince arbitrary thinking When I was a little kid, of course, I was brown all summer. That's because I was free as a bird- nothing to do but catch bugs all day. Roy Blount, Jr. summer bird kids I do some eccentric dancing. Roy Blount, Jr. eccentric dancing Lots of people have expressed consternation that I haven't gotten rid of Southern accent, but I just never saw any reason to lose the flavor that I grew up with. I enjoy saying some things with a Southern accent. Roy Blount, Jr. flavor southern people An author is a person who can never take innocent pleasure in visiting a bookstore again. Roy Blount, Jr. innocent bookstores pleasure A dog will make eye contact. A cat will, too, but a cat's eyes don't even look entirely warm-blooded to me, whereas a dog's eyes look human except less guarded. A dog will look at you as if to say, "What do you want me to do for you? I'll do anything for you." Whether a dog can in fact, do anything for you if you don't have sheep (I never have) is another matter. The dog is willing. Roy Blount, Jr. cat eye dog Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky. Roy Blount, Jr. alcoholism dostoyevsky summer It was easy to make fun of Bush, but it was sort of like shooting fish in a barrel and it didn't really feel all that good because it was so easy to do. I would much rather live under a thoughtful president. Even if it makes it harder to be funny about politics, it makes it more interesting to be funny about politics. Roy Blount, Jr. thoughtful fun interesting Twitter. It's not a good sound, is it? If it were worth doing, there would be a better word for it. Roy Blount, Jr. ifs would-be sound That's American English for you: more roots than a mangrove swamp. Roy Blount, Jr. american-english swamps roots