Quotes by Joshua Ferris - Page 2

A child, thought Carl, is not the only result of childbirth. A mother, too, is born. You see them every day--nondescript women with a bulge just above the groin, slightly double-chinned. Perpetually forty. Someone's mother, you think. There is a child somewhere who has made this woman into a mother, and for the sake of the child she has altered her appearance to better play the part.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Children
Mother
Thinking
Copy Quote
The people at the very top could fall by and grace you with their presence and give you a little largesse, and you'd be "Oh, I'm so beloved." In a way, it was kind of like flattery. The middle managers didn't quite have that cachet, but at the same time, they had to seem like they were of that caliber. So there's a little bit of loneliness at the heart of those with a little bit of power.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Fall
Heart
Loneliness
Copy Quote
Comedy is like fictional charm. It's the charm of fiction. Or the charisma of fiction. When you meet somebody who's immediately charismatic, you're attracted to that person. And in fiction it's got to come out in either one of two ways: in the prose itself, and you're hooked immediately because you never want to leave such a colorful and penetrating world. Or, it's simply being a funny writer.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Charisma
Comedy
World
Copy Quote
The internet takes a lot of the anxiety of life away. It's a kind of deity. You're never lonely. You're always distracted. If you spend enough time on it, there's not really that nagging sensation of existential despair; it erases it very effectively. And it's monolithic. And thanks to it, we've got the ways to linger there after death - your blog exists afterwards, your e-mail exists afterwards.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Anxiety
Despair
Lonely
Copy Quote
The whole time I was writing, I had to fight my normal inclination to be funny, to sort of patch humor in, in order to convey all of the disruptions of the disease to the family dynamic, the loss of individuality, the impact on professional life, and the sanity of the main character. Of course, that's not to say it never sneaks in; there's some black comedy in there, like when he shows up to court wearing a bicycle helmet and won't take it off.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Character
Fighting
Writing
Copy Quote
I think if there hadn't been the one passage of the book that mostly abandons the humor, and focuses very intently on one person's struggle with cancer, it wouldn't have been a critical success. So that was a very deliberate decision, to say "Well, if you think it's all fun and games, it's not." So that was my approach: We're going to have as much fun as I can possibly provide, but the serious things that might normally pass by you are not going to be lost.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Cancer
Fun
Struggle
Copy Quote
I think comedy is so much easier to do on the page than it is in real life. When I'm writing, comedy is an easy way to win over the reader. You're automatically more disposed to keep reading, thinking maybe, "I'll get another laugh or two." I think it's a survival instinct in me. I mean, you don't want to lose these guys within five or ten pages. You want them to keep going. I think to some extent it's a desperate measure that I throw out there, because a novel isn't a complete waste of time if it made you laugh.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Mean
Reading
Real
Copy Quote
Yet for all the depression no one ever quit. When someone quit, we couldn't believe it. 'I'm becoming a rafting instructor on the Colorado River,' they said. 'I'm touring college towns with my garage band.' We were dumbfounded. It was like they were from another planet. Where had they found the derring-do? What would they do about car payments? We got together for going away drinks on their final day and tried to hide our envy while reminding ourselves that we still had the freedom and luxury to shop indiscriminately.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Believe
College
Colorado River
Copy Quote
Once I had the voice, I knew I wasn't going to fall off the bicycle. I tap right back into it. It really was like learning how to ride a bike - you never forget, and I was able to carry it along with some ease. I never encountered any stumping problems that left me not knowing what to do, so I was mostly able to hold my ground. Of course, I should mention that it took me a long time to actually acquire the voice; there were a lot of frustrated attempts along the way, revisions to long sections and versions of the book that I abandoned.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Book
Fall
Long
Copy Quote
I always knew from the beginning that this was the only way to write Then We Came To The End - that it had to be in first - person plural if it was going to illustrate how the individual becomes part of the collective. I had no interest in writing the book in a more conventional voice. It goes back to that fascination I had with telling a story in multiple ways. It was the only choice I gave myself, really - I said "This is it, pal. If you can't tell a story this way, you're going to have to abandon the book. Write it this way or give up."
Joshua Ferris / Author
Book
Giving Up
Writing
Copy Quote
I'm not sure that all books aren't that way. I think that might apply to any book I was writing. The book was kind of the product of this enormous infatuation I had, not only with the office and office politics, but with perspective, and trying to tell a story from as wide a range of perspectives as you possibly can. I tried to capture it all with the first-person plural, but once I settled on that, I used it to tell the story from as many angles as I could. I guess, to put it romantically, it was about a love affair with the craft of perspective.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Book
Thinking
Writing
Copy Quote
Names generate meaning in a short amount of space — they provoke thoughts, questions. That's something I like doing. Of course, you have to be careful. Sometimes it can alienate the reader, it can be another level of mediation, to make a character carry the great burden of a metaphoric name. The character can be a device before he or she becomes a person, and that can be a bad thing for a writer who wants to offer up a kind of emotional proximity in the work. It's a constant struggle, the desire to be playful and the desire to communicate on some very stark emotional level.
Joshua Ferris / Author
Character
Emotional
Struggle
Copy Quote

Related Author Authors

Zig Ziglar
Author
Saturday, Nov 06, 1926
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2012
Wayne Dyer
Author
Friday, May 10, 1940
Saturday, Aug 29, 2015
Stephen Covey
Author
Monday, Oct 24, 1932
Monday, Jul 16, 2012
Peter Drucker
Author
Friday, Nov 19, 1909
Friday, Nov 11, 2005
Napoleon Hill
Author
Friday, Oct 26, 1883
Sunday, Nov 08, 1970
Maya Angelou
Author
Wednesday, Apr 04, 1928
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Les Brown
Author
Saturday, Feb 17, 1945
John Muir
Author
Saturday, Apr 21, 1838
Thursday, Dec 24, 1914
John C. Maxwell
Author
Thursday, Feb 20, 1947
Zz Packer
Author
Friday, Jan 12, 1973
Zsuzsanna Budapest
Author
Tuesday, Jan 30, 1940
Zona Gale
Author
Wednesday, Aug 26, 1874
Tuesday, Dec 27, 1938
Zoey Dean
Author
Zoe Weil
Author
Thursday, Jul 13, 1961
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Author
Wednesday, May 11, 1927
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2014

View All Author Quotes

Top Authors

Friedrich Nietzsche
Philologist
Tuesday, Oct 15, 1844
Saturday, Aug 25, 1900
John Lewis
U.s. Representative
Wednesday, Feb 21, 1940
Dwight D. Eisenhower
34Th U.s. President
Tuesday, Oct 14, 1890
Friday, Mar 28, 1969
Stephen Hawking
Physicist
Thursday, Jan 08, 1942
Thomas Aquinas
Priest
Tuesday, Jan 28, 1225
Wednesday, Mar 07, 1274
Napoleon Hill
Author
Friday, Oct 26, 1883
Sunday, Nov 08, 1970
Thomas Jefferson
3Rd US President
Saturday, Apr 13, 1743
Tuesday, Jul 04, 1826
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Writer
Thursday, Aug 28, 1749
Thursday, Mar 22, 1832
Theodore Roosevelt
26Th U.s. President
Wednesday, Oct 27, 1858
Monday, Jan 06, 1919
Oprah Winfrey
Media Proprietor
Friday, Jan 29, 1954
Groucho Marx
Comedian
Thursday, Oct 02, 1890
Friday, Aug 19, 1977
Mother Teresa
Saint
Friday, Aug 26, 1910
Friday, Sep 05, 1997
Jordan Peterson
Psychologist
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Philosopher
Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970

View All Authors

Joshua Ferris Quotes - Page 2

App & Tools

Related Author Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Author Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page