Renata Adler Quotes

35 Sourced Quotes

My grandmother refused to concede that any member of the family died of natural causes. An uncle's cancer in middle age occurred because all the suitcases fell off the luggage rack onto him when he was in his teens, and so forth. Death was an acquired characteristic.

Renata Adler
Being neurotic seemed to be a kind of wild card, an all-purpose explanation.

Renata Adler
Writing about writing is a bit like talking about a conversation you are having; it tends to obscure desperation about where the next word is coming from.

Renata Adler
The radical intelligence in the moderate position is the only place where the center holds. Or so it seems.

Renata Adler
My capacity for having a good time exists. It surfaces, however, on odd occasions.

Renata Adler
That "writers write" is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.

Renata Adler
A favorite strategy was the paragraph-terminating: Right? Followed immediately by Wrong. This linear invitation to a mugging was considered a strategy of wit.

Renata Adler
There is a difference, of course, between real sentiment and the trash of shared experience.

Renata Adler
Most movies are not very good. Most people know it and like to see them anyway.

Renata Adler
The writer has a grudge against society, which he documents with accounts of unsatisfying sex, unrealized ambition, unmitigated loneliness, and a sense of local and global distress.

Renata Adler