Richard Price famous quotes

03-28-2025

You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.
-- Richard Price

#War #Lying #Kids
The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance.
-- Richard Price

#War #Lying #Writing
If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing.
-- Richard Price

#Writing #Stories #Ends
Some day, my son, you are going to learn that the two greatest joys of being a man are beating the hell out of someone and getting the hell beaten out of you, good night.
-- Richard Price

#Good Night #Son #Men
The first thing to look out for after your first big success are drugs and screenplays.
-- Richard Price

#Drug #Looks #Firsts
I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.
-- Richard Price

#Art #Thinking #Mind
And what is the religion of many persons but a kind of demonism that delights in human sacrifices and causes them to look with horror on the greatest part of mankind? Plutarch, it is well known, has observed very justly that it is better not to believe in a god than to believe him to be a capricious and malevolent being.
-- Richard Price

#Religious #Believe #Sacrifice
Tremble, all ye oppressors of the world!
-- Richard Price

#Law #World #Oppressors
I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.
-- Richard Price

#Writing #Character #Needs
Writers spend three years rearranging 26 letters of the alphabet. It's enough to make you lose your mind day by day
-- Richard Price

#Years #Mind #Letters
I don't write police stories, per se, but I usually write about areas that are very panoramic, like Harlem, or the Lower East Side, or a small urban city like Jersey City.
-- Richard Price

#Writing #Cities #Police
I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does. You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do.
-- Richard Price

#Art #Writing #Choices
I write because I can't imagine not writing.
-- Richard Price

#Writing #Imagine #Because I Can
I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly.
-- Richard Price

#Chance #Listening To Music #Knows
I have offices all over the place and I avoid work everywhere. I don't like to write - I like to be finished.
-- Richard Price

#Writing #Office #Finished
You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies
-- Richard Price

#Lying #Creativity #Character
I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions.
-- Richard Price

#Book #Judging #Different
In a given scene I may know nothing more than how it's supposed to end, most of the time not even that. Scenes are improvised. A character does or says something, and with as much spontaneity and schizophrenia as I can muster, another character responds. In this way, everything I write is spontaneous chain reaction and I'm running around playing leapfrog in my brain trying to "be" all my people.
-- Richard Price

#Running #Character #Writing
I do small cameos here and there but nothing that requires more than a paragraph of talking, because I'm just an amateur. The movie is a whole different reality.
-- Richard Price

#Reality #Talking #Here And There
The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments.
-- Richard Price

#Fire #Causes #Events
The more I hung out with detective squads, the more there was always one guy or two guys or a woman who had a case that they were the primary on years ago, it was never solved, and they take that case into their retirements.
-- Richard Price

#Retirement #Years #Squad
As the industry has matured, real estate has become a very accepted investment. Institutions have used core investments to get comfortable with real estate as an asset class, and now that they're comfortable they're moving up the risk spectrum.
-- Richard Price

#Real #Moving #Class
I started thinking about my relationship with my students; I'm this guy who comes in from book - and movie - land and descends on angel wings into their classroom.
-- Richard Price

#Relationship #Book #Angel
If you're writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can't not write about 9-11; you can't not integrate it. My main character's view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn't have to take over, but it has to be acknowledged.
-- Richard Price

#New York #Book #Character

You may also like:

Anne Tyler
Novelist
Anthony Doerr
Author of novels
David Remnick
Journalist
David Simon
Author
Delroy Lindo
Actor
Dennis Lehane
Author
George Pelecanos
Author
Hubert Selby, Jr.
Writer
Jill Lepore
Professor
John Turturro
Actor
Laura Lippman
Author
Martin Scorsese
Film director
Michael K. Williams
Actor
Philip Kaufman
Film director
Riz Ahmed
Actor
Spike Lee
Film director
Steven Zaillian
Screenwriter
Tom Rob Smith
Writer
Wendell Pierce
Actor
Daniel Espinosa
Film director