Tom Wolfe quotes - page 2

Driving a stock car does not require much handling ability, at least not as compared to Grand Prix racing, because the tracks are simple banked ovals and there is almost no shifting of gears. So, qualifying becomes a test of raw nerve - of how fast a man is willing to take a curve. (Tom Wolfe)
Vietnam was really an idealistic thing to stop the spread of communism, which, incidentally, it did. It was a pretty costly way to do it, but it achieved its goal. View quote
Tom Wolfe
Even hostile parodies admit from the start that the target has a distinct voice. View quote
Tom Wolfe
It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don't put psychotics in high places and we've got the problem solved. View quote
Tom Wolfe
The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it's an example of freedom from religion. View quote
Tom Wolfe
I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my television; before long, there was this procession of people of all kinds walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; there was no sound. View quote
Tom Wolfe
It's fortunate that I am a writer, because that has helped me understand the properties of words. They are what have made life complex. In the battle for status in the animal kingdom, power and aggressiveness have been all-important. But among humans, once they acquired speech, all that changed. View quote
Tom Wolfe
...Las Vegas is the only town in the world whose skyline is made up neither of buildings, like New York, nor of trees, like Wilbraham, Massachusetts, but signs. View quote
Tom Wolfe
Television reporters aren't really called reporters. They are called researchers. And that's really all they are. View quote
Tom Wolfe
I wrote a number of pieces in the year 1966 that were so bad that, although I'm a great collector of my own pieces, I have never collected them. View quote
Tom Wolfe
I've never met an American who wanted to build an empire. (Tom Wolfe)
Most people don't read editorial pages. I think I must have been 40 before I even looked at an editorial page. View quote
Tom Wolfe
By the time I received my doctorate in American studies in 1957, I was in the twisted grip of a disease of our times in which the sufferer experiences an overwhelming urge to join the 'real world.' So I started working for newspapers. View quote
Tom Wolfe
My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the left, so people expected of him a kind of 'Les Miserables,' in which the underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not - and was not interested in - telling a lie. View quote
Tom Wolfe
It would be all one experience, with all the senses opened wide, words, music, lights, sounds, touch - lightning. View quote
Tom Wolfe
Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth. She tried to make her lips move in sync with his. The next thing she knew, Hoyt had put his hand sort of under her thigh and hoisted her leg up over his thigh. What was she to do? Was this the point she should say, "Stop!”? No, she shouldn't put it that way. It would be much cooler to say, "No, Hoyt,” in an even voice, the way you would talk to a dog that insists on begging at the table. Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now! She must say "No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog[...]. View quote
Tom Wolfe
Interviewer: So you weren't surprised by the Dan Rather debacle? Wolfe: I wasn't surprised it happened. The media have a pretty wild history in this respect. Whenever somebody would make up a story, they would say, 'Oh, that's the influence of the New Journalism.' God, newspapers have been making up stories forever. This kind of trifling and fooling around is not a function of the New Journalism. View quote
Tom Wolfe
Everyone is taught the essentials of writing for at least 13 years, maybe more if they go to college. Nobody is taught music or tap dancing that way. View quote
Tom Wolfe
It's not just that reporting gives you a bigger slice of life, gives - lends verisimilitude to what you are doing - it's that it feeds the imagination. View quote
Tom Wolfe
God, newspapers have been making up stories forever. This kind of trifling and fooling around is not a function of the New Journalism. View quote
Tom Wolfe
'Why' is a question no animal can ask, because both the question and answers require speech. Have you ever seen an animal shrug? (Tom Wolfe)
I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it. View quote
Tom Wolfe
To me, novels are a trip of discovery, and you discover things that you don't know and you assume that many of your readers don't know, and you try to bring them to life on the page. View quote
Tom Wolfe
It helps to know from a very early age what you want to do. From the time I was five years old, I wanted to be a writer, even though I couldn't even read. It was mainly because I thought of my father as a writer. View quote
Tom Wolfe
When I went to high school, my most passionate desire was to be a professional baseball player. But something within me told me that was not going to happen. View quote
Tom Wolfe