58 Quotes by Richard Hell

It used to be that artists thought of nature as their environment. Now media is our environment. It has been for the past 50, 70 years. It’s what you see on TV, on the computer, what is in the magazines and newspapers.

I’m not into this memoir craze that’s been going on for 20 years now and doesn’t seem to ever let up. People just indiscriminately say “memoir” now when it’s a person writing about their own life.

When you’re young, you don’t especially think of yourself as being young. You’re just alive and everything’s interesting and you don’t think of things in terms of age because you’re not conscious of it.

I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam War and the collapse of the ‘60s and the proliferation of media’ it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out.

I never thought I would write an autobiography, probably because my first novel, Go Now, is really all drawn from my life, even though it’s more about the psychology going on.

I usually don’t think of anyone ever suspecting that I might be someone who’d cry at stuff. I cry at movies all the time. And sometimes it really pisses me off because I hate it when they’re just jerking my chain and it’s just like completely manipulative.

Basically, I have one feeling... the desire to get out of here. And any other feelings I have come from trying to analyze, you know, why I want to go away... See, I always feel uncomfortable and I just want to... walk out of the room. It’s not going to any other place or any other sensation, or anything like that, it’s just to get out of ‘here’.

I’m forever amazed at how much fun it is to leave. Just to leave. Arriving has its points, but leaving is inexhaustible.

I’m someone who’s really susceptible to tears.