John Gregory Dunne Quotes

• I’ve always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Character, Novelists

  45 Copy quote

• Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Art, Jobs, Writing

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.196, Zola Books

  15 Copy quote

• Violence is the way stupid people try to level the playing field.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Stupid, People, Trying

  John Gregory Dunne (2007). “Nothing Lost”, p.29, Vintage

  17 Copy quote

• The world is divided up into two kinds of people - those who look at their body waste in the toilet bowl, and those who don't.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Two, People, Looks

  John Gregory Dunne (2007). “Nothing Lost”, p.329, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East.

  John Gregory Dunne

  New York, Congratulations, Self

  10 Copy quote

• The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Notebook, Mind, Jumpstart

  5 Copy quote

• There are two types of people ... the scrutinizers and the scrutinized

  John Gregory Dunne

  Two, People, Type

  6 Copy quote

• I started all over again on page 1, circling the 262 pages like a vulture looking for live flesh to scavenge.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Flesh, Pages, Vulture

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.197, Zola Books

  7 Copy quote

• Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Writing, Track, Trying

  5 Copy quote

• The professional guts a book through - in full knowledge that what he is doing is not very good. Not to work is to exhibit a failure of nerve.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Work, Book, Nerves

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.197, Zola Books

  7 Copy quote

• Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Book, Mean, Doe

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.197, Zola Books

  4 Copy quote

• The eleventh commandment of a motion picture negotiation: Thou shalt not take less than thy last deal.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Lasts, Strategy, Negotiation

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.134, Zola Books

  4 Copy quote

• The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Umbilical Cord, Fetus, Literature

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.198, Zola Books

  17 Copy quote

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