Paul Auster quotes - page 3

Paul Auster was an American author, director, and screenwriter, celebrated for his inventive narratives and postmodern style. His most famous works include "The New York Trilogy," which has captivated readers with its blend of mystery and philosophical reflection. He influenced contemporary literature with his explorations of identity, coincidence, and urban life. Here are 86 of his quotes:

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Paul Auster

No book includes the entire world. It's limited. And so it doesn't seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There's so much other material to write about.

Paul Auster

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people - more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true - in certain rare, isolated cases.

Paul Auster

Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years.

Paul Auster

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing.

Paul Auster

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Paul Auster

I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.

Paul Auster

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one.

Paul Auster

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience.

Paul Auster

If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything.

Paul Auster

Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them.

Paul Auster

There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round.

Paul Auster

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.

Paul Auster

One should never underestimate the power of books.

Paul Auster

You can't put your feet on the ground until you've touched the sky.

Paul Auster

Every man is the author of his own life.

Paul Auster

I believe that the whole idea of the consumer society is tottering. We've kept ourselves going by producing more and more goods, most of which people don't need. I'm anti-consumerism; I own four pairs of black Levis and that's it.

Paul Auster

People who don't like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that's how life is.

Paul Auster

In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose.

Paul Auster

We all want to believe in impossible things, I suppose, to persuade ourselves that miracles can happen.

Paul Auster

You tend to feel very hurt when people attack you and feel indifferent when you get praise. You think, 'Of course they like it. They should like it.'

Paul Auster

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

Paul Auster