Joshua Ferris Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Things could be worse and things could be so much better.

  Joshua Ferris

  Joshua Ferris (2014). “To Rise Again at a Decent Hour: A Novel”, p.11, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• A child, thought Carl, is not the only result of childbirth. A mother, too, is born. You see them every day--nondescript women with a bulge just above the groin, slightly double-chinned. Perpetually forty. Someone's mother, you think. There is a child somewhere who has made this woman into a mother, and for the sake of the child she has altered her appearance to better play the part.

  Joshua Ferris

  Mother, Children, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• We loved killing time and had perfected several ways of doing so. We wandered the hallways carrying papers that indicated some mission of business when in reality we were in search of free candy.

  Joshua Ferris

  Reality, Paper, Way

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• I think if there hadn't been the one passage of the book that mostly abandons the humor, and focuses very intently on one person's struggle with cancer, it wouldn't have been a critical success. So that was a very deliberate decision, to say "Well, if you think it's all fun and games, it's not." So that was my approach: We're going to have as much fun as I can possibly provide, but the serious things that might normally pass by you are not going to be lost.

  Joshua Ferris

  Fun, Cancer, Struggle

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Some days felt longer than other days. Some days felt like two whole days. Unfortunately those days were never weekend days. Our Saturdays and Sundays passed in half the time of a normal workday. In other words, some weeks it felt like we worked ten straight days and had only one day off.

  Joshua Ferris

  Sunday, Weekend, Two

  4 Copy quote

• We found ourselves wanting to hurry time along, which was not in the long run good for our health. Everybody was trapped in this contradiction but nobody ever dared to articulate it.

  Joshua Ferris

  Running, Long, Contradiction

  Joshua Ferris (2007). “Then We Came to the End: A Novel”, p.163, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• It is really irritating to work with irritating people

  Joshua Ferris

  People, Irritating People, Irritating

  Joshua Ferris (2008). “Then We Came to the End”, p.12, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• The people at the very top could fall by and grace you with their presence and give you a little largesse, and you'd be "Oh, I'm so beloved." In a way, it was kind of like flattery. The middle managers didn't quite have that cachet, but at the same time, they had to seem like they were of that caliber. So there's a little bit of loneliness at the heart of those with a little bit of power.

  Joshua Ferris

  Loneliness, Fall, Heart

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• We suffered failures of imagination just like everyone else, our daring was wanting, and our daily contentment too nearly adequate for us to give it up.

  Joshua Ferris

  Giving, Imagination, Contentment

  5 Copy quote

• Why shouldn't it be that way for the rest of us? Why not just go with it? Just walk the dog and send the tweets and eat the scones and play with the hamsters and ride the bicycles and watch the sunsets and stream the movies and never worry about any of it? I didn't know it could be that easy. I didn't know that until just now. That sounds good to me.

  Joshua Ferris

  Life, Dog, Sunset

  8 Copy quote

• I have never stopped considering not becoming a writer.

  Joshua Ferris

  Becoming, Considering

  "Joshua Ferris" by Jennifer L. Knox, www.newyorker.com. June 14 & 21, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• If someone were plucked from the group and given those responsibilities, they might find themselves growing more aloof, just by virtue of that promotion. Suddenly the group culture excludes you. I saw this in my own working life, and I don't think it's a coincidence - I sensed a kind of loneliness in middle managers especially.

  Joshua Ferris

  Loneliness, Responsibility, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you can get by with quotes from The Godfather and nothing you say matters, that's pretty bleak, don't you think? Don't we want what we say to matter?

  Joshua Ferris

  Thinking, Want, Matter

  4 Copy quote

• Baseball is the slow creation of something beautiful. It is the almost boringly paced accumulation of what seems slight or incidental into an opera of bracing suspense. The game will threaten never to end, until suddenly it forces you to marvel at how it came to be where it is and to wonder at how far it might go. It’s the drowsy metamorphosis of the dull into the indescribable.

  Joshua Ferris

  Beautiful, Baseball, Games

  4 Copy quote

• The office is a romantic enabler because you're always around the person you have a crush on. There's no escape from, and maybe no desire to escape from, those pressure-cooker conditions. And there's an automatic series of things you have to talk about all the time.

  Joshua Ferris

  Crush, Office, Desire

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes you have to make decisions that necessarily exclude the collective. It's more difficult to be a friend - even though they know each other and they treat each other like friends, it's more of a challenge for them. It's just institutional fact; the two characters that are the most aloof are the ones who have the most responsibility.

  Joshua Ferris

  Character, Responsibility, Decision

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• One thing that I discovered about myself is I really don't like traveling. I feel like it's a terrible personal failing, but I was so satisfied to arrive at the conclusion.

  Joshua Ferris

  Failing, Terrible, Conclusion

  4 Copy quote

• I believe people think as a group more often than we might realize or care to admit. We like to believe that we act as individuals and nothing more, but time and again - in corporations and business, in politics and religion, in fashion and culture, and in friendships and social circles - we think and do as one.

  Joshua Ferris

  Fashion, Believe, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Every time you hear someone read your book and liked your book, you're never sure whether that's going to follow with a similar remark from someone else. Perhaps I have low expectations, but whenever I hear someone say, 'I liked your book,' I don't know if it's going to happen again.

  Joshua Ferris

  Book, Expectations, Lows

  "Joshua Ferris Interview: Rock Star in the Book Store". Interview with Jason Pinter, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 10, 2010.

  8 Copy quote

• I always knew from the beginning that this was the only way to write Then We Came To The End - that it had to be in first - person plural if it was going to illustrate how the individual becomes part of the collective. I had no interest in writing the book in a more conventional voice. It goes back to that fascination I had with telling a story in multiple ways. It was the only choice I gave myself, really - I said "This is it, pal. If you can't tell a story this way, you're going to have to abandon the book. Write it this way or give up."

  Joshua Ferris

  Giving Up, Book, Writing

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• After I left college I thought, very naively, that either you became someone interesting - an artist - or you went into academia. If you ended up in an office you were dull and lacking. And I ended up in an office.

  Joshua Ferris

  College, Artist, Interesting

  "This much I know: Joshua Ferris" by Gaby Wood, www.theguardian.com. February 13, 2010.

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• I think it's a very bad idea for someone to start writing for a readership.

  Joshua Ferris

  Writing, Thinking, Ideas

  "Joshua Ferris Interview: Rock Star in the Book Store". Interview with Jason Pinter, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 10, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

• Yet for all the depression no one ever quit. When someone quit, we couldn't believe it. 'I'm becoming a rafting instructor on the Colorado River,' they said. 'I'm touring college towns with my garage band.' We were dumbfounded. It was like they were from another planet. Where had they found the derring-do? What would they do about car payments? We got together for going away drinks on their final day and tried to hide our envy while reminding ourselves that we still had the freedom and luxury to shop indiscriminately.

  Joshua Ferris

  Believe, College, Colorado River

  12 Copy quote

• I don't write directly on to the computer because I don't think well facing forward with fingers on a keyboard. I think better looking down holding a pen. And the concentration quotient of pen and paper is higher than when I'm moving words around on screen.

  Joshua Ferris

  Moving, Writing, Thinking

  "Writers' rooms: Joshua Ferris", www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• Once I had the voice, I knew I wasn't going to fall off the bicycle. I tap right back into it. It really was like learning how to ride a bike - you never forget, and I was able to carry it along with some ease. I never encountered any stumping problems that left me not knowing what to do, so I was mostly able to hold my ground. Of course, I should mention that it took me a long time to actually acquire the voice; there were a lot of frustrated attempts along the way, revisions to long sections and versions of the book that I abandoned.

  Joshua Ferris

  Book, Fall, Long

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

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