James Frey Quotes

There are no categories in contemporary art. There are no rules. Artists are given the freedom to make and create whatever they please and call it whatever they please. I identify with that system, or lack of system, much more than I do the landscape of contemporary publishing.

And as ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes all any of us needs in life is for someone to hold our hand and walk next to us.

The afternoon and the early evening slide by in a lidded daze where the ability to think in any identifiable way disappears and where every moment seems to be an eternity.

And loss of control is always the source of fear. It is also, however, always the source of change.

My wife says I’m only comfortable when there’s a fight. And it’s true. The thing that motivates me is struggle.

Live and let live, do not judge, take life as it comes and deal with it, everything will be okay.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like if the Messiah, or Christ Returned, were actually alive and living in our society; who would that person be, how we would identify them, how would they live and what would they believe in, how would society react to them? I decided to try and tell my idea of that story.

I always wanted to be the outlaw. And that’s to a certain extent how I’ve lived.

Whatever hardships there have been in my life I still live in a very privileged position. Fear is not knowing where your next meal is coming from. Fear is seeing a child get hurt. Fear is watching someone you love waste away. Fear is knowing you are going to die yourself. But there’s no fear in what I do. I write books.

When I was a little boy, Marvin Hagler was my idol. He got no respect for most of his career. His fighting style was straight ahead. He took every shot thrown at him, and he kept punching back ’til he won. I honestly feel that’s how I am. I take big shots from people. But I keep going.

I have a great amount of confidence and faith in my abilities to write. There are other areas of my life where I’m not as confident, and have not as much faith, but when it comes down to writing and working, I don’t worry about it. I trust myself to get it right.

When I go to an art gallery and stand in front of a painting, I don’t want someone telling me what I should be seeing or thinking; I want to feel whatever I feel, see whatever I see, and figure out what I figure out.

I don’t want to walk in the middle. I want people to read what I write and feel strongly about it. If, at some point, whatever I am doing is failing to elicit a response, whether it’s very positive or very negative, then I am going to stop doing it.

America was first colonized by Puritans. Most of our earliest immigrants, and many since, have come here in order to practice their religious beliefs as they please. Our culture has always been, and will most likely always be, profoundly influenced by religion.

The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone.

When something is staring you in the face in your life and you see it with your own two eyes and feel it within your heart only a fool doesn’t believe it to be true.

I’ve always said I’m more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they’re given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

I wanted to be a writer that had an impact. I wanted, and still I say the same thing, I want to write books that change people’s lives, change how we think and live and read and write. I wanna write books that are read in 50 or 100 years.

The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, conflict.

When I was a screenwriter, I was doing it for mercenary reasons.

Let things be, let yourself be, let everything be and accept it as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I am essentially optimistic. Being alive is incredible. Life is extraordinary and beautiful. It can be hard and sad and terrifying, but it’s all we’ve got.

I can run fast when I want to run fast, and I’ve always been good at destroying things.

I will not allow people to impose rules on me that don’t make sense to me. And I live and work very much outside the literary world and the literary system. What they think and what they believe and what their rules are mean nothing to me.

I think as an artist or a writer it’s OK to want to control your own work.