James Frey Quotes

Addicts, as a group, generally score far above average o intelligence tests. Why? You tell me. I guess maybe we're smart enough to have figured out how shitty things are and we decide addiction is the only way to deal with it.

The feeling of arms around me, of love in my heart, it was more powerful than any of the negativity I knew was existing in the world for me. That feeling of love killed it all.

Sometimes skulls are thick. Sometimes hearts are vacant. Sometimes words don't work.

I meet a third man he's an old man he trips in the street he falls and I help him up, walk him to the curb. He shakes my hand says keep the faith, young man. I ask him what he means, he says keep running and don't let them catch you.

I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing things and not allowing things outside of myself to distract me or bother me or affect me in any way.

Love is love. It doesn't matter how or who you love. I don't believe the messiah would condemn gay men and women.

I skip the introduction. If the book goes in the trash, I want it to go because of my thoughts on it, not because of some Asshole's thoughts who wrote the introduction.

You don't have to follow anybody's conventions.

Stay. Fight. Live. Take it. Cry. Cry. Cry.

It started when she passed me a note in English class. The note said you don't seem as awful as I hear you are. I passed one back that read: beware I am as awful as people say and worse. She laughed and I had a friend. She didn't become my Ally and I didn't ask her to or want her to but she became my friend and that was more than anyone else was willing to do.

In life we often look to others for simple, but difficult answers, despite the fact that we have those answers ourselves.

Most books aren't pure nonfiction or fiction.

Every year, at 8:00 PM on the second Saturday of July, hundreds of people gather along a section of Los Angeles rail track to drop their pants and moon passing passenger trains.

I have lived alone, I have fought alone, I have dealt with the pain alone. I will die alone. I think when I'm going to leave. I don’t want to be seen and I don’t want to be followed , I want to disappear quickly and quietly and without any drama , I want as much time in the darkness as I can possibly have . The darkness provides cover, the darkness provides places to hide and the darkness provides comfort.

Light streamed through one of the windows and across her face and I have never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in my life. If my heart had stopped at that moment I would have fallen happy and fallen full and I would have seen in life all that I had wanted to see and all that I needed to see. Fall. Let me fall.

Practice not wanting, desiring, judging, doing, fighting, knowing. Practice just being. Everything will fall into place.

Ive never had any interest at all in being a journalist or writing some sort of historically accurate autobiography.

...if you can accept the truth and live with it your heart will be at peace.

The past doesn't matter. People cling to it because it allows them to ignore the present.

I think as an artist or a writer it's OK to want to control your own work.

Being an unpublished novelist has about as much social acceptability as being a shopping bag lady.

It's been great getting better with you.

My life is routine. I wake up early in the morning. I brush my teeth. I sit on the floor of the cell I do not go to breakfast. I stare at a gray cement wall. I keep my legs crossed my back straight my eyes forward. I take deep breaths in and out, in and out, and I try not to move. I sit for as long as I can I sit until everything hurts I sit until everything stops hurting I sit until I lose myself in the gray wall I sit until my mind becomes as blank as the gray wall. I sit and I stare and I breathe. I sit and I stare. I breathe.

I think men who can cry are strong men

About life: "It is not complicated unless I make it so. It is not difficult unless I allow it to be. A second is no more than a second, a minute no more than a minute, a day no more than a day. They pass. All things and all time will pass. Don't force or fear, don't control or lose control. Don't fight and don't stop fighting. Embrace and endure. If you embrace, you will endure.

I am aware that the battle I am fighting is a petty one, but I am also aware that in order to win that which is great, you must first win that which is small.

Sometimes I really want to believe in God. I really admire, in a lot of ways, people who have faith. I think it must be a beautiful thing to believe.

When I was a screenwriter, I was doing it for mercenary reasons.

More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to be close to someone. More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to feel as if i wasn't alone.

She is sitting on frozen ground wrapped in a blanket, her pale skin shining. She smiles and she stands and without words, she steps forward, opens the blanket, envelops me within it and within her and within myself. She kisses my cheek, the one not torn, she wraps me and she holds me. Her arms are thin but strong. She whispers in my ear, "I'm glad you're here.

The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, conflict.

Lying became part of my life. I lied if I needed to lie to get something or get out of something

I try to write books that are different from the books I've already written. I think one of the thing I really try to do is reinvent how a novel can be written.

I say to myself if you believe deeply in your heart you must defy, and if you are willing to pay for your defiance, you must always do it, even though the pain may be much. Too many times in our lives we do not do it, and we pay even more.

But love is different for every person. For some it's hate, for some it's joy, for some it's fear, for some it's jealousy, for some it's torture, for some it's peace. For some it's everything.

I listen to the tick of an unseen clock marking moments of time long passed.

But that's part of faith. Believing and knowing despite what other people say, and despite what the world might think of your beliefs.

I turn and I look back across the lake. The mist is gone and the ice diminished, the drip of the icicles quick and heavy. The sun is up and the sky is blue empty blue light blue clear blue. I would drink the sky if I could drink it, drink it and celebrate it and let it fill me and become me. I am getting better. Empty and clear and light and blue. I am getting better.

Be patient and wait. Your mud will settle. Your water will be clear.

Let things be, let yourself be, let everything be and accept it as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Pain is the feeling. Suffering is the effect the pain inflicts. If one can endure pain, one can live without suffering. If one can withstand pain, one can withstand anything. If one can learn to control pain, one can learn to control oneself.

And as ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes all any of us needs in life is for someone to hold our hand and walk next to us.

I'm writing books. They're still a mix of fact and fiction and will continue to be. I think it's an interesting place to work.

I hope nobody took the Razzle Dazzle Rose.

He pulled out turned west and started driving towards the glow it was thousands of miles away, he started driving towards the glow.

I've been alone my whole life, I can't do it anymore.

I, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due.

Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song?