Christopher Bollen Quotes
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You find when you're writing a detective story that you're actually not trying to solve anything. You're trying to stop the reader from solving the puzzle.
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People aren't doing whodunits anymore.
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I had lived in New York since 1996, sometimes in the worst neighborhoods, without even locking my door half the time.
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Every time I try to write on vacation, I fail miserably.
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There's a structure to a detective story that I can easily understand. I understand playing that particular game. It's like solving a puzzle. Or creating a puzzle.
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I definitely don't take any of intrusions in my private life personally. You learn how to have a sense of humor pretty quickly. I honestly don't keep up on it unless it's something that would hurt someone else. I can take care of myself, that's not the problem. But it's just not fair to bring anyone else into the picture.
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I've never had a mentor. I've always wanted one. I'm actually really disappointed that nobody took my under their wing.
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As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy.
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It's really hard to write about art in general. But it's exceptionally hard to fictionalize art and make work that isn't a parody, or is something that could withstand critique and exist in the art world as a valuable object, or a true piece.
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The first horror movie I saw, in first or second grade, was My Bloody Valentine 1981, where there's a deranged killer in a miner mask stalking a small coal town.
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Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.
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I'm really much better at asking questions than answering them, since asking questions is like a constant deflection of oneself.
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I would stay at my grandma's house on my birthday every year and I remember she had a bookshelf of murder mystery books along with really frightening books, like one on Jack the Ripper. She also had a poster of a shark in the closet which also terrified me at the time.
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We lost so many talented artists and writers from the generations before ours that we're really lacking older figureheads.
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It's always surprised me that mainstream America had the good taste to like R.E.M. It doesn't have the digestible quality the general public tends to look for in its favorite musicians.
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I have always wanted to be either a cinematographer or a veterinarian.
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It's hard for me to figure out where I want to be. But it's definitely in New York. I feel like New York throws different challenges at you and you can be more creative.
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I also wonder why is it that so many of the movies and books that are detective stories are also the most aesthetically interesting? From Hollywood noirs to horror movies like The Shining 1980.
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My strength is character. I'm pretty good at building walking-talking humans with brains like beehives.
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One day I want to write a full-on horror book.
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I'm convinced I was the only kid ever who had a Death on the Nile 1978 movie poster and a Murder on the Orient Express 1974 movie poster on his bedroom walls.
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Going out into the country after living in the city is a loss of control.
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The Greeks really believed in history. They believed that the past had consequences and that you might be punished for the sins of your father. America, and particularly New York, runs on the idea that history doesn't matter. There is no history. There is only the never-ending present. You don't even have your family because you moved here to get away from them, so even that idea of personal history has been cut at the knees.
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When you create a fence, you keep people out, but you also limit your mobility.