Quotes by Chris Bohjalian - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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Dead … might not be quiet at all.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Might
Quiet
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I need complete silence when I write.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Silence
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With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Age
Acumen
Insight
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Why a ghost story? Well, I love them. They're fun to read - and, yes, fun to write.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Ghost
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I answer two or three letters a day. I'm just not the he-has-a-secretary kind of guy.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Letters
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But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Memories
Sometimes
Want
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I loved all ghost stories. So I guess it was only a matter of time before I wrote one.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Ghost
Ghost Stories
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When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Frightening
Seems
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No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Alive
Said
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My grandparents, like many genocide survivors, took most of their stories to their graves.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Genocide
Grandparent
Graves
Stories
Survivor
Survivors
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He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Defined
Negative
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Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine. . .and then make them plausible.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Interesting
Lying
Writing
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Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Memories
Should
Treated
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And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Dream
Past
Trying
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I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Certainty
I Can
Magic
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I live here in Vermont, in a village of barely a thousand people halfway up the state's third highest mountain.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Halfway
Mountain
Vermont
Village
Barely
Highest Mountain
Third
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He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Firsts
Said
Soldier
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On a regular basis if you're trying to produce something, I think you should work every day and set achievable goals.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Produce
Basis
Work Goals Day
Regular Basis
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A single, ordinary person still can make a difference - and single, ordinary people are doing precisely that every day.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Differences
Making A Difference
People
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My wife and I would be very comfortable having a baby at home or using one of the terrific nurse-midwives at the hospital.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Having A Baby
Terrific
Hospital
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My wife and I would be very comfortable having a baby at home, or using one of the terrific nurse-midwives at the hospital.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Home
Baby
Nurse
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When I was 13, my family moved from a suburb of New York City to Miami, Florida, and we moved there the Friday before Labor Day weekend.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Florida
Friday
Labor
Labor Day
Miami
New York City
Weekend
Suburb
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Life is filled with small moments that seem prosaic until one has the distance to look back and see the chain of large moments they unleashed.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Distance
Looks
Small Moments
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We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Games
May
Writing
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What is most important to me is that my narrator's voice is believable, and that, though it is clearly an absolute fiction, it has the emotional resonance of memoir.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Believable
Memoir
Resonance
Absolute
Me Voice Important
Narrator
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The reality is that most of North America knows next to nothing of the 20th centurys first genocide - the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the First World War.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
War
America
Reality
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The reality is that most of North America knows next to nothing of the 20th century's first genocide - the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the First World War.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Armenians
First World War
Genocide
North America
Slaughter
Systematic
War Reality World
First World
World War
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My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Healing
Hurt
Mother
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The honest answer is more complex. On some level I was sent. Or inspired. Or called. But my calling, such as it was, wasn't a single booming invitation from above (really, is it ever?).
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Answers
Calling
Levels
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If you are stymied as a writer, if it's just not coming together, then take the pressure off and don't feel that you need to write 1,000 words today; just write one really good sentence.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Sentence
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I do have hobbies - I garden and bike, for example - but there's nothing in the world that gives me even a fraction of the pleasure that I derive from hanging around with my wife and daughter.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Daughter
Bike
Garden
Hobbies
World Me Wife
Derive
Wife World Me
For Example
Fraction
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I think the most important lesson isn't necessarily to try and write a different book every time, or to try and brand yourself and write one specific kind of book, but to write the kind of books you love to read.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Love Time Yourself
Important Lesson
Lesson
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But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Doe
Lines
Matter
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I'm half-Armenian. Even though my grandparents did not discuss the genocide, and my father - like many sons and daughters of immigrants - wanted to be as 'American' as possible, I was always aware of it. How could I not be?
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Genocide
Immigrants
Daughters
Discuss
Sons
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People seem to read so much more nonfiction than fiction, and so it always gives me great pleasure to introduce a friend or family member to a novel I believe they'll cherish but might not otherwise have thought to pick up and read.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Cherish
Nonfiction
Family Great Believe
Family Member
Great Pleasure
Introduce
Member
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As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them you would grow despairing - one calling from Stockholm with a Swedish accent, one from the NBA, and one from Oprah Winfrey.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Lifetime
Nba
Never Expect
Phone Calls
Phones
Stockholm
Swedish
Accent
Calls
Despairing
Phone
Oprah
Oprah Winfrey
Receive
Waited
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If you look at my personal library, you will notice that it ranges from Henry James to Steig Larsson, from Margaret Atwood to Max Hastings. There's Jane Austen and Tom Perrotta and volumes of letters from Civil War privates. It's pretty eclectic.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Austen
Civil War
Eclectic
Letters
Max
Civil
James
Margaret
Notice
Tom
Volumes
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My personal opinion is that, if you're a professional writer, that you do have quotas. So every day I do try to write 800-1,200 words. I don't always achieve it, and the reality is that a lot of the words I write will end up on the cutting-room floor.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Floor
Professional Writer
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On the one hand, I'm this guy who grew up in the suburbs of New York City to very conservative parents, and the other side of me is fascinated by the peripheries of our culture, maybe because that's where our culture is most in transition and where there's likely to be conflict.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Conflict
Fascinated
New York City
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Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Lying
Moving
Your Side
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The world is filled with human toxins -- not the darkness that we all occasionally crave, but actually people who are so unwilling to bask in the angelic light that is offered us all that they grow poisonous -- and you can pray for their eventual recovery and healing. And sometimes those prayers will be answered. But sometimes these individuals have been vaccinated against goodness and against angels and they are so unwilling to give an inch to their God that often they never (and I use this expression absolutely literally) see the light.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Angel
Prayer
Recovery
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As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . .Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn't accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.
Chris Bohjalian / Novelist
Animal
Country
Eye
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