Literature precedes genre. Rick Moody More Quotes by Rick Moody More Quotes From Rick Moody Cool is spent. Cool is empty. Cool is ex post facto. When advertisers and pundits hoard a word, you know it's time to retire from it. To move on. I want to suggest, therefore, that we begin to avoid cool now. Cool is a trick to get you to buy garments made by sweatshop laborers in Third World countries. Cool is the Triumph of the Will. Cool enables you to step over bodies. Cool enables you to look the other way. Cool makes you functional, eager for routine distraction, passive, doped, stupid. Rick Moody stupid country moving Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem. Rick Moody genre-is bookstores literary-genre The past was so past it hurt. Rick Moody it-hurts hurt past Capitalism, in the realm of sexuality, I figure, thinks that we behave in specific ways, like a breast is always going to produce a hard-on for some product, whereas the truth is that sexuality is always a continuum, which can be characterized by reversals. Rick Moody sexuality truth-is thinking I think literature is best when it's voicing what we would prefer not to talk about. Rick Moody literature thinking I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order. Rick Moody treasure should order Tangled in one another's arms and nine times out of ten the things you think about a person make it impossible to touch them. Rick Moody tangled arms thinking People tend to be scared of what they can't see. Rick Moody scared people I love comic books and always did as a kid. Rick Moody kids book children It turns out that my memory is just not that great, so for specific scenes with people doing stuff, sometimes I'd have the details all wrong or I couldn't remember what happened exactly, so I just let that be. Rick Moody details memories people My contention is that that style is just as stylized as an ornate style. Rick Moody contention style I sort of hate the novel when it doesn't push, restlessly, against the tradition and the traditional. Rick Moody tradition novel hate I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable. Rick Moody sad memorable trying I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket. Rick Moody reading believe book The Ice Storm, because of the movie, has had, or is to have, a vigorous life in other cultures. Rick Moody hockey other-cultures ice I think people on antidepressants often lose sexual feelings. I don't mean that I think sex is only about sadness; it is obviously about joy and vitality and birth as well. Rick Moody sadness mean thinking Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that. Rick Moody bondage facts fiction I do think that just about whenever I am writing, or more accurately, whenever I have written, I feel better and more at peace as a human being. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the literary product is any good. Rick Moody feel-better writing mean Maybe when I'm sixty-five I'll talk about my literary life. Rick Moody sixty five The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice. Rick Moody voice writing ideas