Top 180 James Frey Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I wanted to be a writer that had an impact. I wanted, and still I say the same thing, I want to write books that change people’s lives, change how we think and live and read and write. I wanna write books that are read in 50 or 100 years.”

— James Frey

52. “Learn to deal with that. It’s the way of the world. You fight and struggle and work your ass off and then you die. Deal with that.”

— James Frey

53. “I feel strong. Not strong enough to face myself, but strong enough to keep going.”

— James Frey

54. “When something is staring you in the face in your life and you see it with your own two eyes and feel it within your heart only a fool doesn’t believe it to be true.”

— James Frey

55. “Words can’t say this. The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough.”

— James Frey

56. “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?”

— James Frey

57. “The best stories are universal stories that have been told for as long as humanity has existed it’s just figuring out new ways to do it, with language, with structure. And so I’m always trying to do that.”

— James Frey

58. “Everything I know and I am and I have seen felt done past present past now then before now seen felt done hurt felt focus into a something beyond words beyond beyond beyond and it speaks now and it says. Stay. Fight. Live. Take it.”

— James Frey

59. “I always felt I had a hole in my heart, this big black hole that made me feel lonely and empty and worthless. I tried to fill it, everybody tries in some way, and it just got bigger and bigger.”

— James Frey

60. “The one word love means too little for what it is. It doesn’t communicate even a fraction of the feelings involved. Love. The word is not enough for what it is. Love. Love.”

— James Frey

61. “I don’t care what people come at me with. People have come at me with everything you could imagine. I could care less about that.”

— James Frey

62. “I hope nobody took the Razzle Dazzle Rose.”

— James Frey

63. “I want one last look at something beautiful. I want one last look so that I have something to hold in my mind while I’m dying, so that when I take my last breath I will be able to think of something that will make me smile, so that in the midst of the horror I can hold on to some shred of humanity.”

— James Frey

64. “When I go to an art gallery and stand in front of a painting, I don’t want someone telling me what I should be seeing or thinking; I want to feel whatever I feel, see whatever I see, and figure out what I figure out.”

— James Frey

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

— James Frey

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

— James Frey

67. “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.”

— James Frey

68. “I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want that moment to end and I didn’t want that feeling to ever leave me. But all things leave us, all people, all feelings, no matter how we want them to stay, no matter how tight we hold on to them. We lose everything in life at some point.”

— James Frey

69. “She made me feel better than I have ever felt, better than I imagined I could feel, and it scared me, it scared me to the point of paralysis.”

— James Frey

70. “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.”

— James Frey

71. “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.”

— James Frey

72. “I would like to be soft and warm. I would be terrified to be that way. I could be hurt if I were soft and warm. I could be hurt by something other than myself. It is harder to be soft than it is to be hard. I could be hurt by something other than myself.”

— James Frey

73. “We live in a world that’s very fast, where we get bombarded with huge amounts of information very quickly, and I have tried to tailor my voice to the times, which I think, writers, over the course of history – many have always done.”

— James Frey

74. “We stare into each other’s eyes and softly kiss speaking and saying more with the movement of our lips and the tips of our fingers than words will allow us to say. Words can’t say this. The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough. It doesn’t communicate even a fraction of the feelings involved. Love. The word is not enough for what it is. Love. Love.”

— James Frey

75. “Leonard asks me if there’s anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what’s the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that’s an easy one, my son, it’s whatever you want it to be.”

— James Frey

76. “I often think of death. True. Suicide is a reasonable option. True. My sins are unpardonable. I stare at the question. My sins are unpardonable. I stare at the question. My sins are unpardonable. I leave it blank.”

— James Frey

77. “My body is falling apart and my mind fell apart a long time ago.”

— James Frey

78. “My wife says I’m only comfortable when there’s a fight. And it’s true. The thing that motivates me is struggle.”

— James Frey

79. “If there is beauty, there is ugliness. If there is good, there is bad. Being and nonbeing and difficult and easy and high and low and long and short and before and after and need, depend, create and define each other.”

— James Frey

80. “Los Angeles is a lonely city. Everyone is focused on advancement success fame and money, it is hard to adjust to a culture based on always wanting more, on never being satisfied.”

— James Frey

81. “To say that you can’t see echoes of the past in what I do would be absurd. Everything that has preceded me has affected me.”

— James Frey

82. “I don’t want to walk in the middle. I want people to read what I write and feel strongly about it. If, at some point, whatever I am doing is failing to elicit a response, whether it’s very positive or very negative, then I am going to stop doing it.”

— James Frey

83. “Some people think memoirs should be held to a perfect journalistic standard. Some people don’t. Obviously I don’t. My goal was never to create or to write a perfect journalistic standard of my life. It was always to be as literature.”

— James Frey

84. “And even though people try to pretend that pain doesn’t do anything to them, none of us can really handle it. Everything bad we do in our life is because of pain of some kind.”

— James Frey

85. “To live with angels and chase their dreams.”

— James Frey

86. “Hate me if you must, but know that I will never hate you.”

— James Frey

87. “I just think it’s a great world to tell stories in, to tell cool stories: money, sex, fame, and scandal. Those are great subject matters to work with.”

— James Frey

88. “For years I supported capital punishment, but I have come to believe that our criminal justice system is incapable of adequately distinguishing between the innocent and guilty. It is reprehensible and immoral to gamble with life and death.”

— James Frey

89. “I regretted making a comment about Dave Eggers. I’ve never said anything about McSweeneys except that I admire what it is, and I think it’s great that they keep people interested in literature.”

— James Frey

90. “We did what our people do all the time, we told ourselves something we did was right and we found a way to justify it, even though we knew it was wrong.”

— James Frey

91. “Blood is blood and it’s all red. Show me what’s in your heart and in your eyes.”

— James Frey

92. “One of the beautiful and terrible things about America is you can go there and still be whatever you want, if you bust your ass and you have some luck.”

— James Frey

93. “You don’t have to follow anybody’s rules.”

— James Frey

94. “Fear, he said, ran all of our lives. Fear, he said, after religion, was the most destructive force in the world.”

— James Frey

95. “It’s cold and it’s winter and the world has gone to sleep.”

— James Frey

96. “I’m married, I have a couple kids, I’ve traveled a lot, I’ve done book tours a lot, I’m happy to stay home and take my kids to school and come to the office.”

— James Frey

97. “I don’t write with an outline. I don’t often know what I’m going to do as I’m writing. And I do everything by feel and by instinct.”

— James Frey

98. “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.”

— James Frey

99. “I hadn’t learned yet that everybody’s locked up some way or other. That’s how life is we’re all imprisoned by something.”

— James Frey

100. “What someone calls my books is irrelevant to me. I consider them works of art and rules and categories and labels mean nothing.”

— James Frey