Mark Leyner Quotes

Quotes about:

• You are fiercely heterosexual and well-formed, and it's no one's business that you've shrunk your parents and keep them in a terranium, but you have a gatling gun for a mouth, and if that's a diary you're producing from your cleavage, I'm leaving.

  Mark Leyner

  Gun, Parent, Leaving

  Mark Leyner (2012). “I Smell Esther Williams”, p.36, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• When you are a child, you often stare too closely at the wrong thing. I remember the first time I was taken to Yankee Stadium. Someone had spilled something sweet earlier in the day and the ground was covered with ants. I spent the whole game staring at the ants, and that was more fascinating than the game.

  Mark Leyner

  Sweet, Children, Taken

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Yo! You’re my dope dealer not my thesis adviser. If I wanted your opinion about my dissertation, I’d have asked for it, Motherfucker!

  Mark Leyner

  Dope, Opinion, Wanted

  Mark Leyner (2011). “The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel”, p.19, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• I was an infinitely hot and dense dot.

  Mark Leyner

  Hot, Dots, Dense

  Mark Leyner (2012). “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist: A novel”, p.11, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes I think my purpose is as a saboteur when I'm working with other people, derailing what they're trying to do or taking things to a ludicrous extremity.

  Mark Leyner

  Thinking, People, Trying

  "Mark Leyner on 'War, Inc.'". Interview with Aaron Hillis, www.ifc.com. May 22, 2008.

  7 Copy quote

• So where does the name Adam's apple come from? Most people say that it is from the notion that this bump was caused by the forbidden fruit getting stuck in the throat of Adam in the Garden of Eden. There is a problem with this theory because some Hebrew scholars believe that the forbidden fruit was the pomegranate. The Koran claims that the forbidden fruit was a banana. So take your pick---Adam's apple, Adam's pomegranate, Adam's banana. Eve clearly chewed before swallowing.

  Mark Leyner

  Believe, Garden, Names

  Mark Leyner, Billy Goldberg, M.D. (2006). “Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?: More Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whiskey Sour”, p.9, Crown Archetype

  41 Copy quote

• People really want to believe that there is no fiction. I think they find it much easier to imagine that novelists are writing memoirs, writing about their lives, because it's difficult to conceive that there's a great imaginary life in which you can participate.

  Mark Leyner

  Believe, Writing, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• The interesting thing about something in the back of your mind is that it can travel pretty far back in your mind.

  Mark Leyner

  Interesting, Mind, Interesting Things

  4 Copy quote

• People have no idea how much work it is for a man to produce an ejaculation. You have this seminal vesicle churning out this fluid, the prostate gland producing an alkaline solution. It's like having five iron chefs in your crotch working to cook up this stuff.

  Mark Leyner

  Men, People, Chef

  Source: abcnews.go.com

  4 Copy quote

• I guess I can picture things once they're done - I just can't picture actually doing them.

  Mark Leyner

  Done, I Can

  Mark Leyner (1997). “The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel”, Harmony

  4 Copy quote

• I have an enduring, very robust infatuation with dictators. I have an infatuation with Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. In the Paris Review interview I did (in 2013), I said my next book, this one, was going to be about Mussolini. I wound up only having a Mussolini cameo in the book.

  Mark Leyner

  Book, Infatuation, Dictator

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I've always wanted to be a poet at the beginning. I would look at my grandparents' books and my parents' books. And in my family, a typical aspirational Jewish family, being a writer was very much exalted, and it seemed impossible to me, that I could ever do something like that.

  Mark Leyner

  Book, Grandparent, Typical

  "Whit Stillman and Mark Leyner on Their First Projects in 15 Years". Interview with Matthew Perpetua, www.rollingstone.com. April 6, 2012.

  6 Copy quote

• It's in great joy that we grasp truth.

  Mark Leyner

  Joy, Great Joy

  5 Copy quote

• I can tell from about 20 yards away when someone has a manuscript for me. I can just tell - they have that look.

  Mark Leyner

  Yards, Looks, Manuscripts

  4 Copy quote

• Stand-up comedy had an interesting effect on me in terms of how I started to think about constructing things, because I really loved the interstices, the linkages, or lack thereof.

  Mark Leyner

  Thinking, Interesting, Comedy

  Interview with Brian Joseph Davis, www.believermag.com.

  5 Copy quote

• I think of memory as a game, that is as something one engages in with a very profound kind of "playfulness."

  Mark Leyner

  Memories, Thinking, Games

  "The Rumpus Book Club chat with Mark Leyner". Live chat (edited by Brian Spears), therumpus.net. March 16, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• One of the things that struck me as unique about Hollywood is that I never had bad meetings. There were all enthusiastic, but meaninglessly enthusiastic.

  Mark Leyner

  Unique, Hollywood, Enthusiastic

  "Whit Stillman and Mark Leyner on Their First Projects in 15 Years". Interview with Matthew Perpetua, www.rollingstone.com. April 6, 2012.

  6 Copy quote

• I think to simply make fun of something isn't particularly interesting. I try to not just do a parody of something or belittle something or disparage something.

  Mark Leyner

  Fun, Thinking, Interesting

  5 Copy quote

• When I started, I wanted to be thought of as tortured and seductive, not funny, but humor tends to be a reflexive part of a person's sensibility. It's an almost impossible thing to teach anyone, which leads me to believe that it's intuitive.

  Mark Leyner

  Believe, Impossible Things, Seductive

  12 Copy quote

• As far as what I do, my value as a writer is certainly not to try to recapitulate a 19th century form. Certain styles of narrative don't conform to my style of experiencing the world.

  Mark Leyner

  Style, Trying, World

  4 Copy quote

• My idea with my work is always to fashion something that's impossible to transpose into any other media.

  Mark Leyner

  Fashion, Media, Ideas

  "The Rumpus Book Club chat with Mark Leyner". Live chat (edited by Brian Spears), therumpus.net. March 16, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• I've always been entranced with theater.

  Mark Leyner

  Theater

  "The Rumpus Book Club chat with Mark Leyner". Live chat (edited by Brian Spears), therumpus.net. March 16, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• “Et Tu, Babe” was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer’s life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing, it’s my whole life.

  Mark Leyner

  Reading, Writing, Certainty In Life

  "Mark Leyner On “War, Inc.”". Interview with Aaron Hillis, www.ifc.com. May 22, 2008.

  7 Copy quote

• I'm fascinated with video games, though I can't really play them. It's definitely an art form that intrigues me to no end, though.

  Mark Leyner

  Art, Games, Play

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• My work generally tends to be an all-out, 360-degree subversive take on everything, most of all my own notion of myself as a son, father, husband, human being and male in this culture.

  Mark Leyner

  Husband, Father, Son

  "Mark Leyner on 'War, Inc.'". Interview with Aaron Hillis, www.ifc.com. May 22, 2008.

  5 Copy quote

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