Paul Rudnick famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Writing is 90% procrastination. It is a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Morning #Writing #Procrastination
As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Morning #Reading #Procrastination
Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Reading #Procrastination #Writing
The only thing I have ever been asked [by a pollster] was the age at which I first indulged in oral sex (which, since it was a Yale Daily News poll, meant kissing).
-- Paul Rudnick

#Sex #Kissing #Yale
Because thereâ€™s a clock attached to every beautiful woman. From the second she comes into her own, she begins to decline, because she begins to age. Aging is every beautiful womanâ€™s kryptonite. And so, yes, itâ€™s ridiculous and no, you donâ€™t have much time and of course itâ€™s not fair. Those three statements are the essence of beauty.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Beautiful #Essence #Kryptonite
And so I continue in borderline poverty, save for my one indulgence, no, my single absolute necessity: I take cabs. Yes, on occasion, when I wish to see what people with unpleasant skin conditions are wearing, I do take the subway. I have never, I am proud to say, taken the bus, because people who take the bus have given up.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Taken #People #Wish
Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot h'ors d'ourves. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Pain #Taken #Home
I work sometimes from outlines, which are immediately abandoned. Sometimes, when I'm trying to find the characters, I'll sketch things out a bit. Sometimes, outlines help me aim a little bit, but I tend to find it's usually much more interesting, especially with the first draft, to spew it onto the page. I used to get very nervous that, if I write this first rough draft and I die that night, whoever finds it might think that I thought it was good. For me, it's much more important to get some general shape onto the page and later take all the time I need to refine it, fix it, and rewrite it.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Writing #Character #Night
Whenever I stumble over my own feet, or blurt out a thought that makes no sense at all, or leave the house wearing one pattern too many, I always think, It's okay, I'm from New Jersey. I love New Jersey, because it's not just an all-purpose punch line, but probably a handy legal defense, as in 'Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Thinking #Feet #Wife
I was once all by myself in a house on Fire Island. Where I compared the original cast recordings of two different versions of The Wild Party. A helicopter should have descended and taken me away to a gay penal colony. But of course, I was already there.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Party #Taken #Gay
Dysmorphia is when someone looks in the mirror, and sees something else. While I studied my own whatever I was, I decided that maybe everyone has at least a touch of dysmorphia; maybe it's impossible for anyone to ever truly know what they look like.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Mirrors #Looks #Impossible
I believe in a benevolent God not because He created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because He gave us snacks.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Believe #Snacks #Canyons
wait," I said. "so you're saying that you proposed to me because I'm a mess and I'm a person and because we need each other, while Rebecca was â€”â€” something else? I get it, I follow you, but I'm also thinking, is the bullshit getting a little deep in here?" "Yes, it is. You've caught me. And so fine, I will come clean, and I will tell you the absolutely true and naked reason why I want to marry you and only you, and not Rebecca." "Why?" "Because when I'm with you, I'm the pretty one.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Thinking #Bullshit #Waiting
Most gay bashers will be wearing what gay people had on four years earlier - only in polyester with a Penney's label.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Gay #Years #People
I think people who make checklists are the most miserable and alone because they are looking for the perfect Entenmann's that is delicious and has no calories. Please, you want a brunette with a sense of humor, a doctorate and HIV-negative status? Good luck, honey. Love isn't so frequent that you can put conditions on it.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Good Luck #Love Is #Thinking
There is only one blasphemy, and that is the refusal to experience joy.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Joy #Atheism #Refusal
Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey.
-- Paul Rudnick

#Wife #Jersey #Bigfoot

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