Lisa Lutz Quotes
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My mother, at sixty, is one of those classic beauties: all neck and cheekbones, sharp lines that hide her wrinkles from a distance. She still gets whistles from construction workers from three stories up.
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When I was 6, I learned where I came from, which was one step removed from the usual circumstances. I was adopted.
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I worked for a private investigative agency briefly. I rarely had the opportunity to snoop.
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I have a love/hate relationship with jogging.
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I learned how to cross-country ski.
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'The Chosen,' if you recall, was based on the Chaim Potok novel and featured Robbie Benson's persuasive performance as a Hasidic Jew.
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Hair color is the easiest way to change your appearance, but a bad dye job might draw more attention to you.
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Although I'm not an orphan and I can't lift a horse. I was, however, briefly famous for my feats of strength: at about age 11, I could competitively arm-wrestle a full-grown man.
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I'd like to think that if I were in prison for a crime I didn't commit, someone would be trying to get me the hell out of there.
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I didn't feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy childhood. My mother was overly sensitive; my father, ascetic. I was neither. I felt as if I were living with complete strangers. I suspect that my parents felt the same way.
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I could never really choose a favorite book, but whenever I'm asked what my favorite movie is, I always say 'Withnail & I,' a British film from 1987. It's funny and sad and absolutely gorgeous to look at. It's the film I can watch over and over again.
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Band I listen to most: The Ramones.
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If I were one of the three viable presidential candidates, I doubt I'd be too broken up about someone looking into my passport file. Go ahead look, I'd say. It's the passport photo I wouldn't want anyone getting his hands on.
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Finally, I'm recognizing that rewrites aren't some cosmic punishment for childhood wrongs but the nature of the business.
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I was never obsessed with being adopted. I was simply curious about my biological parents.
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I wouldn't say that my family is normal.
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Years ago, when my attempts at a writing career came to a complete stand-still, I applied to the Los Angeles Police Department. This might seem odd for a liberal woman who once went to UC Santa Cruz, but I've always had a powerful fascination with crime and serious interest in finding different ways to contend with it.
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I tend to start books with a very broad outline, but I always leave room for happy accidents. With 'The Passenger,' there were perhaps too many of those.
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If you're trying to hide, avoid using your own name. Have a couple spares that you can pull out of your pocket anytime, the more thoroughly documented the better.
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I was young, maybe 4, when I learned where babies came from.
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'Await Your Reply' by Dan Chaon. I've always been obsessed with the idea of disappearing and becoming someone else. Even if you don't share that obsession, I can't recommend this book highly enough.
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Sometimes a single item can wrap up, in a nutshell, who a person is. In my grandparents' home, a clear plastic container was enthroned on top of the mahogany bar for at least a decade. Painted on the lid in pink, yellow and light blue was 'Have a Nosh With Mort & Ethel'.
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Humor is the only way to tell a story. Especially the dark ones.
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Six years after I wrote the first draft of 'Plan B,' I received my first paycheck as a writer. It included both the $3,000 in deferred option money as well as half the fee for performing the initial rewrite. The amount was scale according to the Writer's Guild guidelines, but a lot, according to me.