Paul Rudnick Quotes

• Writing is 90% procrastination. It is a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.

  Paul Rudnick

  Morning, Writing, Procrastination

  48 Copy quote

• As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.

  Paul Rudnick

  Morning, Reading, Writing

  37 Copy quote

• There is only one blasphemy, and that is the refusal to experience joy.

  Paul Rudnick

  Happiness, Joy, Atheism

  10 Copy quote

• Most convicted felons are just people who were not taken to museums or Broadway musicals as children.

  Paul Rudnick

  Children, Taken, Helping Others

  12 Copy quote

• wait," I said. "so you're saying that you proposed to me because I'm a mess and I'm a person and because we need each other, while Rebecca was —— something else? I get it, I follow you, but I'm also thinking, is the bullshit getting a little deep in here?" "Yes, it is. You've caught me. And so fine, I will come clean, and I will tell you the absolutely true and naked reason why I want to marry you and only you, and not Rebecca." "Why?" "Because when I'm with you, I'm the pretty one.

  Paul Rudnick

  Thinking, Bullshit, Waiting

  Paul Rudnick (2013). “Gorgeous”, p.273, Scholastic Inc.

  9 Copy quote

• Because there’s a clock attached to every beautiful woman. From the second she comes into her own, she begins to decline, because she begins to age. Aging is every beautiful woman’s kryptonite. And so, yes, it’s ridiculous and no, you don’t have much time and of course it’s not fair. Those three statements are the essence of beauty.

  Paul Rudnick

  Beautiful, Essence, Kryptonite

  Paul Rudnick (2013). “Gorgeous”, p.57, Scholastic Inc.

  6 Copy quote

• Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.

  Paul Rudnick

  Reading, Writing, Procrastination

  14 Copy quote

• I love [my parents], but what if I could really talk to them? I mean, what if they had some answers? Or would that just be too weird?

  Paul Rudnick

  Mean, Parent, What If

  4 Copy quote

• I just hate that gay role models are supposed to be just like straight people, as if even straight people are like that.

  Paul Rudnick

  Hate, Gay, Role Models

  4 Copy quote

• I never got that show - Les Miz. It's about the French guy, right, who steals a loaf of bread, and then he suffers for the rest of his life. For Toast. Get over it!

  Paul Rudnick

  Guy, Suffering, Bread

  4 Copy quote

• I believe in a benevolent God not because He created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because He gave us snacks.

  Paul Rudnick

  Believe, Snacks, Canyons

  Paul Rudnick (2009). “I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey”, Harper

  13 Copy quote

• According to Hollywood logic, none of the actual Titanic passengers was interesting enough, so the writer-director had to invent a Romeo and Juliet-style fictional couple to heat up the catastrophe. This seems a tiny bit like giving Anne Frank a wacky best friend, to perk up that attic.

  Paul Rudnick

  Couple, Interesting, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• I just saw Titanic, which is a $200 million film about a real-life disaster at sea, but according to Hollywood Logic, none of the actual passengers was interesting enough, so the writer-director had to invent a Romeo and Juliet-style fictional couple to heat up the catastrophe. This seems a tiny bit like giving Anne Frank a wacky best friend, to perk up that attic.

  Paul Rudnick

  Couple, Real, Sea

  5 Copy quote

• Have you ever been to a picnic? And someone blows up a balloon, and everyone starts tossing it around, and it's always just about to touch the ground, but someone always gets there just in time to tap it back up? That balloon, that's God, the very best in all of us, the kindness, the heavy petting, Funny Girl! ...Evil bores me. It's just one note. It doesn't sing! Oh, of course life sucks! It always will. So why not make the most of it?

  Paul Rudnick

  Girl, Kindness, Blow

  5 Copy quote

• I work sometimes from outlines, which are immediately abandoned. Sometimes, when I'm trying to find the characters, I'll sketch things out a bit. Sometimes, outlines help me aim a little bit, but I tend to find it's usually much more interesting, especially with the first draft, to spew it onto the page. I used to get very nervous that, if I write this first rough draft and I die that night, whoever finds it might think that I thought it was good. For me, it's much more important to get some general shape onto the page and later take all the time I need to refine it, fix it, and rewrite it.

  Paul Rudnick

  Character, Writing, Night

  6 Copy quote

• Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey.

  Paul Rudnick

  Wife, Jersey, Shots

  Paul Rudnick (2009). “I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey”, Harper

  9 Copy quote

• Most gay bashers will be wearing what gay people had on four years earlier - only in polyester with a Penney's label.

  Paul Rudnick

  Gay, Years, People

  4 Copy quote

• Dysmorphia is when someone looks in the mirror, and sees something else. While I studied my own whatever I was, I decided that maybe everyone has at least a touch of dysmorphia; maybe it's impossible for anyone to ever truly know what they look like.

  Paul Rudnick

  Mirrors, Looks, Impossible

  Paul Rudnick (2013). “Gorgeous”, p.28, Scholastic Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• If God didn't want you to have it, He would never have let you see it.

  Paul Rudnick

  Want, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• The only thing I have ever been asked [by a pollster] was the age at which I first indulged in oral sex (which, since it was a Yale Daily News poll, meant kissing).

  Paul Rudnick

  Sex, Kissing, Yale

  4 Copy quote

• Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot h'ors d'ourves. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.

  Paul Rudnick

  Thanksgiving, Pain, Taken

  7 Copy quote

• I think people who make checklists are the most miserable and alone because they are looking for the perfect Entenmann's that is delicious and has no calories. Please, you want a brunette with a sense of humor, a doctorate and HIV-negative status? Good luck, honey. Love isn't so frequent that you can put conditions on it.

  Paul Rudnick

  Good Luck, Love Is, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• I was once all by myself in a house on Fire Island. Where I compared the original cast recordings of two different versions of The Wild Party. A helicopter should have descended and taken me away to a gay penal colony. But of course, I was already there.

  Paul Rudnick

  Party, Taken, Gay

  4 Copy quote

• And so I continue in borderline poverty, save for my one indulgence, no, my single absolute necessity: I take cabs. Yes, on occasion, when I wish to see what people with unpleasant skin conditions are wearing, I do take the subway. I have never, I am proud to say, taken the bus, because people who take the bus have given up.

  Paul Rudnick

  Taken, People, Wish

  Paul Rudnick (2009). “I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey”, Harper

  4 Copy quote

• Whenever I stumble over my own feet, or blurt out a thought that makes no sense at all, or leave the house wearing one pattern too many, I always think, 'It's okay, I'm from New Jersey.' I love New Jersey, because it's not just an all-purpose punch line, but probably a handy legal defense, as in 'Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey.'

  Paul Rudnick

  Thinking, Feet, Wife

  Paul Rudnick (2009). “I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey”, Harper

  4 Copy quote

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