No matter where you go, poor people have the capacity to endure. Some people even compliment us on it, as if endurance is all we can achieve. Victor LaValle More Quotes by Victor LaValle More Quotes From Victor LaValle I’m always looking for the monster. Not even just in horror. I want them in everything. Just give me the monsters. Logical conclusions don’t satisfy. Monsters satisfy, absolutely. Victor LaValle wantmonstersgiving Empathy is what separates human beings from teenage boys. Victor LaValle empathyteenageboys There are really only two ways to react to the extraordinary. The first is to ponder the grand purpose until all the fun is sucked away, the second is to enjoy it. Victor LaValle purposefuntwo People who move to New York always the same mistake. They can't see the place. Victor LaValle new-yorkmistakemoving Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too. Victor LaValle fightingstrugglemen Why do any of us act the way we do? Is it our beliefs or our biology that shapes us? Lauren Grodstein considers this eternal question through the story of Andrew Waite, scientist, father, widower, struggling to raise two daughters, living with the ghost of his wife, facing a test of his faith in science. There are no easy answers here, just the honest complexity of human beings trying their best to be good people. The Explanation for Everything is moving, beautiful, and wonderfully funny. Victor LaValle daughterbeautifulfather The person you are (in total, at that moment in time) is what creates the story you're writing. It's infused in every piece of punctuation, in the plot, in the most minor character who crosses the page. It's all your voice. Victor LaValle voicewritingcharacter I have my teachers who tell me what to do. I'm not quite old enough yet to be truly independent. Victor LaValle independentenoughteacher A little style is a good thing, but you can’t trust a person who won’t be ugly in front of you. Victor LaValle uglystylelittles The best writing deadlines are poverty and death. Victor LaValle povertydeadlinewriting Jesmyn Ward is an alchemist. She transmutes pain and loss into gold. Men We Reaped illustrates hardships but thankfully, vitally, it's just as clear about the humor, the intelligence, the tenderness, the brilliance of the folks in DeLisle, Mississippi. A community that's usually wiped off the literary map can't be erased when it's in a book this good. Victor LaValle painlossbook William Kowalski is the kind of storyteller you don’t see quite enough these days. The yarn spinner with a generous soul. The Hundred Hearts is a moving, humane adventure about the price of personal connections and the costs of sacrifice. I tore through this bad boy in two short nights. Victor LaValle heartadventuremoving Doubt is the big machine. It grinds up the delusions of women and men. Victor LaValle machinesdoubtmen Nearly everyone could be undone by an old woman's displeasure. Victor LaValle old-womanundonedispleasure The poor aren't defeated. We're domesticated. Victor LaValle defeatedpoor Miniature golf, like billiards, is a game of angles. And, like billiards, most of the fun is in pretending you know what the hell you're doing. The worse you do, the more you have to laugh. Victor LaValle laughgameyouhell What's beautiful about Godzilla is, of course, it's in every way a symbol of Japan dealing with the aftermath of the atomic bombs being dropped on them, and their ideas of how they're affected by it. Victor LaValle beingbeautifulwayideas Clothes are a kind of uniform. A nun's habit, a surgeon's scrubs, a cop's uniform. People often say that when they put on a certain uniform, they actually think of themselves differently. Victor LaValle uniformthinkclothespeople One of the reasons I love devils so much is not based in my faith, but because as a kid, I grew up loving heavy metal and horror movies, and the devil is such a huge presence in both. Victor LaValle moviesdevilfaithlove The best monsters are our anxieties given form. They make sense on the level of a dream - or a nightmare. Victor LaValle sensebestdreammonsters
