Walter Kirn
Walter Kirn
Walter Kirn is an American novelist, literary critic, and essayist. He is the author of eight books, most notably Up in the Air, which was made into a movie starring George Clooney...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
use literature consciousness
A writer has a use for his experiences that most civilians simply don't; he or she discerns material in situations that others simply live through. Perhaps there are some who disapprove of this, but without this double consciousness, literature would not get made at all.
moving touching age
In the age of networked everything, life moves sideways and covers lots of ground while barely touching the earth..
tired writing views
Most writers' view of the New West is either phony - obsessed with the same tired mythology - or it's obsessed with anti-mythology, ... There's not a lot of realistic, observant writing about the West right now.
husband book blood
I disagree that Blood Will Out is a memoir in the conventional sense. It's the story of a relationship, primarily, not an individual. The "me" in the book is a specialized version of me, the person who Clark manipulated and fooled. I could cover the same years of my life from an entirely different perspective in another book, by concentrating on my experience as a husband, say. But I was selective. I focused on my duping.
matter critics commerce
The market is the only critic that matters.
lines who-we-are levels
The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.
interesting acting retarded
He knows, as all the cleverest ones do, that no human being is so interesting that he can't make himself more interesting still by acting retarded at random intervals.
long witch hunts
Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.
dream new-york book
My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.
world sometimes heartbeat
Sometimes, when a person is truly lost in this world, suffocating inside her private bubble where all she can hear is her own droning heartbeat, a touch can be enough.
beautiful ugly faces
The most beautiful faces have some ugly in them.
powerful love-is painkillers
Love is a powerful painkiller.
running flirting risk
There are moments when it frightens us, threatening to expose us as inauthentic. Well, the big-time impostors we read about in literature run this risk constantly, flirting with destruction, not just humiliation or embarrassment. It's a spectacle that we can't help but find compelling, and it involves a certain level of courage that we sneakily admire, perhaps.
insightful fiction stories
Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.