T. C. Boyle

“My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth.”

“I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are.”

“Art saved me. It may sound corny, but it's true.”

“I am mad for nature writing. I want to get inside the head of every creature in the world, even ants.”

“I describe myself as an environmentalist not because I'm marching in the street with placards but because I like to be in the woods by myself.”

“I've never really been met with indifference, where they say, 'Who cares?' I think that's what good art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to make you feel good about your own prejudices and your own values; it's supposed to open you up in some way and get you outraged or make you happy or make you sad or whatever it's going to do.”

“You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before.”

“What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language?”

“Of course all novelists are egomaniacs and want to draw everyone to their fold just like any other preacher. The snake-oil peddler, the false prophet, all of this is fascinating to me. But I certainly hope that I'm more humane than that.”

“I tell jokes, and I have fun, but I tend to worry about everybody and everything throughout the entire world.”

“What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions.”

“Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don't have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier.”

“I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy.”

“I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you.”

“I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in.”

“I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels.”

“Every story is organic, and every story finds its own ending.”

“Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all.”

“The compulsively readable events of my life occurred mainly in infancy, and it's been pretty humdrum ever since.”

“I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book.”