Richard Price Quotes

• The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance.

  Richard Price

  War, Lying, Writing

  29 Copy quote

• I have offices all over the place and I avoid work everywhere. I don't like to write - I like to be finished.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Office, Finished

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• If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Stories, Ends

  9 Copy quote

• I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.

  Richard Price

  Art, Thinking, Mind

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• You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.

  Richard Price

  War, Lying, Writing

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• Some day, my son, you are going to learn that the two greatest joys of being a man are beating the hell out of someone and getting the hell beaten out of you, good night.

  Richard Price

  Good Night, Son, Men

  Richard Price (1999). “The Wanderers”, p.247, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The first thing to look out for after your first big success are drugs and screenplays.

  Richard Price

  Drug, Looks, Firsts

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• And what is the religion of many persons but a kind of demonism that delights in human sacrifices and causes them to look with horror on the greatest part of mankind? Plutarch, it is well known, has observed very justly that it is better not to believe in a god than to believe him to be a capricious and malevolent being.

  Richard Price

  Religious, Believe, Sacrifice

  Richard Price (1983). “The Correspondence of Richard Price: February 1786-February 1791”

  9 Copy quote

• I write because I can't imagine not writing.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Imagine, Because I Can

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• Writers spend three years rearranging 26 letters of the alphabet. It's enough to make you lose your mind day by day

  Richard Price

  Years, Mind, Letters

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• Tremble, all ye oppressors of the world!

  Richard Price

  Law, World, Oppressors

  Richard Price (1790). “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country: Delivered on Nov. 4, 1789, at the Meeting-house in the Old Jewry, to the Society for Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain”, p.50

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• I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Character, Needs

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• I don't write police stories, per se, but I usually write about areas that are very panoramic, like Harlem, or the Lower East Side, or a small urban city like Jersey City.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Cities, Police

  Source: www.pbs.org

  9 Copy quote

• I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does. You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do.

  Richard Price

  Art, Writing, Choices

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• The bigger the issue, the smaller you write.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Issues, Bigger

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• I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly.

  Richard Price

  Chance, Listening To Music, Knows

  7 Copy quote

• You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies

  Richard Price

  Lying, Creativity, Character

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• I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions.

  Richard Price

  Book, Judging, Different

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• In a given scene I may know nothing more than how it's supposed to end, most of the time not even that. Scenes are improvised. A character does or says something, and with as much spontaneity and schizophrenia as I can muster, another character responds. In this way, everything I write is spontaneous chain reaction and I'm running around playing leapfrog in my brain trying to "be" all my people.

  Richard Price

  Running, Character, Writing

  5 Copy quote

• I do small cameos here and there but nothing that requires more than a paragraph of talking, because I'm just an amateur. The movie is a whole different reality.

  Richard Price

  Reality, Talking, Here And There

  4 Copy quote

• The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments.

  Richard Price

  Fire, Causes, Events

  4 Copy quote

• The more I hung out with detective squads, the more there was always one guy or two guys or a woman who had a case that they were the primary on years ago, it was never solved, and they take that case into their retirements.

  Richard Price

  Retirement, Years, Squad

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• If you're writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can't not write about 9-11; you can't not integrate it. My main character's view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn't have to take over, but it has to be acknowledged.

  Richard Price

  New York, Book, Character

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• Beat him, eat him and get out.

  Richard Price

  Gambling, Beats

  Richard Price (1993). “3 Screenplays”, p.43, Grove Press

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• As the industry has matured, real estate has become a very accepted investment. Institutions have used core investments to get comfortable with real estate as an asset class, and now that they're comfortable they're moving up the risk spectrum.

  Richard Price

  Real, Moving, Class

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