I get enjoyment out of writing, but I get absolutely no enjoyment out of rewriting, so I don't do much of it. The more you work on something, certainly, the better it gets. But there's also a pretty clear law of diminishing returns. It drives me crazy to do readings of my books, because if I read anything I've written in the past, I'd like to almost rewrite everything.
Chuck KlostermanI think anyone who's not as good a writer as me is absolutely a hack, and I think anybody who's a slightly better writer than me is brilliant. So of course that makes me a horrible critic when it comes to books, because I can't distance my own experience from what I'm doing.
Chuck KlostermanAmericans have become conditioned to believe the world is a gray place without absolutes; this is because weโre simultaneously cowardly and arrogant. We donโt know the answers, so we assume they must not exist. But they do exist. They are unclear and/or unfathomable, but theyโre out there. Andโperhaps surprisinglyโthe only way to find those answers is to study NBA playoff games that happened twenty years ago. For all practical purposes, the voice of Brent Musburger was the pen of Ayn Rand.
Chuck KlostermanAt a magazine, everything you do is edited by a bunch of people, by committee, and a lot of them are, were, or think of themselves as writers. Part of that is because magazines worry about their voice.
Chuck KlostermanFlying to me isn't scary, it's just incredibly boring. And I guess I have a fear of boredom, so in that regard, I'm afraid to fly.
Chuck Klosterman