Douglas Kennedy

“We try so hard to put our mark on things, we like to tell ourselves that what we do has import or will last. But the truth is, we're all just passing through. So little survives us. And when we're gone, it's simply the memory of others that keeps our time here alive. And when they're gone... That's why - when I go - I'm asking that my dust gets tossed on the water. Because ends up floating away.”

“Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.”

“With a novel, no matter where I am in it, I'm fretting about it. Every time I write a book, it starts with great forward momentum. Then there seems to be a period where it slows down a bit, and other things intervene. Then I gain momentum.”

“I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.”

“If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.”

“The decision to write full time was made when I was twenty-eight years old and had just had two small plays accepted for BBC Radio.”

“From Graham Greene, I learnt how to be an accessible writer who grapples with our doubts as sentient individuals.”

“Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.”

“Words matter, words have import.”

“The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.”

“We don't like admitting this, but it is a key component of human existence: the fact that life has the potential for things both wondrous and horrific.”

“I've been known to write on the Underground in London and on the subway in New York. I have two or three cafes in Paris that I go into. I find a corner with a little shade, and I can work.”