172 Quotes by Walter Kirn

She started out all excited and impressed. ... (She took an immediate dislike to Bill, who struck her as a narcissistic snake.)

because she was very upset and I was trying to do the gentlemanly thing.

Literally, while I was writing, the town eccentrics were looking over my shoulder, asking about what I was writing, listening to my explanations, offering their two cents. It had gotten around town pretty quickly that what Walter was doing inside his house could be viewed easily on a computer. I thought, 'This is more interactivity than I can stand!' But it was interesting too.

I wasn't above having thoughts of God's wrath.

A hundred and fifty years ago, this was just a continent. You could move to the borders and start a whole new country.

They don't understand that in the West, there are many groups that have not yet made their peace with the rest of America. . . . People came to the West to be left alone, as the Mormons did. The West continues to be an experimental American culture.

Good short-story collections, like good record albums, are almost always hit-and-miss affairs - successful if they include three or four great tracks, wildly successful if they have five. And that's as it should be.

You thought you were found but you realize that you were lost, and someday you may discover that you're lost now.

I preferred that my bad dreams be vague.