10 Quotes by Scott McClanahan

I never look at a painting and ask, "Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?" It's just a painting.

I couldn't believe it.Something wasn't right.I thought, "Batman smokes cigarettes."I couldn't believe it. "Batman smokes fucking cigarettes."I walked away and saw that Batman was just this stupid guy dressed up in a rubber suit, just as afraid as I was, and that I lived in a lost place inside my own heart, where even Batman couldn't help me.

Stories can actually rearrange continents if they're told long enough.

I walked up to the side of the mountain like I used to do when I was a little boy. I looked out over Rainelle and watched it shine. The coal trucks and the logging trucks were still gunning it through town. They were still clear cutting the mountains and cutting the coal from the ground. Then I heard my mother calling and it was like I was a child again.

Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

And so we are all made of water then. We are all made up of what came here and collided and allowed something to be born and none of it is new. But he also learned if you wanted to buy the things that make up our bodies it would cost about as much as a candy bar. And that’s all we are. Candy bars and stars.

I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken.

That’s the best way to do anything – get a bunch of poor people to do it.

There is only one thing I know about life. If you live long enough you start losing things. Things get stolen from you: First you lose your youth, and then your parents, and then you lose your friends, and finally you end up losing yourself.