Gary Reilly Quotes & Sayings

It's a funny thing about writing. You get so balled up in a story idea that you lose your perspective and forget that human being might read your words someday. — Gary Reilly

When I was in college I had a wisdom tooth pulled, and I was given a prescription for a bottle of narcotic pills that surely have reached the top of the DEA's hit-list by now. I don't remember the name of the pills, nor do I remember how I ended up in Tijuana. It's probably a long story. — Gary Reilly

The difference between a regular Catholic education and a Jesuit education is the difference between the army and the marines. — Gary Reilly

Like I always say, Now is as good a time as any to start not doing things. — Gary Reilly

The big house ... reminded me of the types of structures you can still see in places like Center City: gingerbread houses, two-story affairs built back in the nineteenth century when people didn't have televisions and were forced to build interesting things out of wood. I have a theory that the outrageous fashions you see in pre-twentieth century culture came about as a result of the lack of television. I'm talking wild hats on women with lots of feathers, pelts, sequined dresses with long trains, as well as top hats on the men, with long-tailed coats. I figure that life in those days was s dull that people themselves became televisions. I'm still working on the theory. I include European royalty in this construct, but let's move on. — Gary Reilly

Adverbs and cops always come in pairs. — Gary Reilly

I've always said that a taxi is a terrible place to have an epiphany ... — Gary Reilly

TGIF," I said aloud even though it was only Thursday. But I was alone in my apartment as far as I knew. I deliberately avoid making whimsical incorrect statements in public. You would be surprised at how many people get irritated if you say "TGIF" on the wrong day. By "people" I mean "English professors." To most English professors it would be inconceivable to say, "Thank God it's Friday" on a Thursday. I don't know if that's because they are strict adherents to the rules of language or if they are mentally ill. — Gary Reilly

Gavin said that writing novels with a PC was supposed to be easier than writing with a typewriter and bond paper, or with a pen and foolscap, or with a chisel and a granite obelisk imported from Greece. I shook my head with pity as he related this canard to me. — Gary Reilly

I've been broke, and I've been in debt, and broke is better. — Gary Reilly

Golf baffles me. They says it's a sport, and I have to take their word for it, but anything that involves having fun while standing up doesn't interest me. That includes dancing. NASCAR I can understand. In fact, anything that involves sitting down automatically has my interest ... — Gary Reilly

They paid people to write books!!! Until that moment I had a vague idea that books were produced in factories, like tires, or else they grew on trees, like money. — Gary Reilly

Being a cab river is not unlike being a magician
minus the top hat, the cape, the rabbit, an the gorgeous assistant. But you do have an audience. — Gary Reilly

She looked confused. She looked off-balance. That's a technique I employ to get dates, and it always works. — Gary Reilly

I had long ago learned that books are the best presents you can buy for a person
except me. I like toys. But the point is books last longer, and aren't as easy to break, like almost everything else you can buy in today's free market. Call me an English major, but I happen to believe that books are more substantial than pet rocks, hula hoops, and most fruitcakes. — Gary Reilly

Work/Loaf Ratio" ... I have spent fourteen years perfecting ... I won't bore you with a long-winded explanation of the "W/LR" save to say that it is an algebraic formula of such complex numeric subtlety that it can be understood only by mathematicians and hobos. — Gary Reilly

I'll admit it. Every once in awhile I'll read a book that has a plot. I was weaned from plots in college, but there comes a time when a man gets tired of reading detailed descriptions of the inner landscapes of characters whose pointless lives are ground to ash by their inability to move in any direction. — Gary Reilly

Most of the ideas I've gotten for novels or screenplays have occurred to me while I was either shaving or taking a bath. A number have occurred to me while I was driving 127. I rarely get ideas when seated in front of my typewriter, which I find ironic because I have always suspected that typing somehow plays a key role in writing. — Gary Reilly

I wandered the sidewalk watching all the street performers doing their juggling acts, playing their musical instruments, busting their asses to avoid work. I liked that. But I wanted to tell them there were easier ways to avoid work, like cab driving. — Gary Reilly

My big dream back then was to buy an IBM Selectric. I still have that dream. I really ought to buy a word-processor. Half the cabbies at Rocky own computers. They tell me they can write failed novels ten times faster on a PC. — Gary Reilly

I guided my heap into the heart of Capitol Hill wondering for the first time in fourteen years what I could do to get money besides drive cabs or rob banks. Both occupations had their pros and cons. For instance, bank robbery isn't quite as dangerous as cab driving, but it pays better. — Gary Reilly

I have completed and uncompleted screenplays, but they both fall into the category of "unsold." I've seen quite a few movies where the screenplays seemed to be in the "uncompleted" category yet still got sold and made into movies, so I generally refer too all screenplays as "sold" or "unsold." But that's just my own filing system. — Gary Reilly

I don't know why the publishers in New York don't take a tip from Hollywood and just publish the outlines of novels rather than the completed books. Let the audience use their imaginations, as my Maw always says about radio. I would much prefer to read an outline of War and Peace than slog through eight hundred thousand words. Why do I need Tolstoy to describe snow? I can imagine snow, whether Russian snow or just regular snow. But book publishers seem to think that the authors should do all the work, and the readers should be waited on hand-and-foot like a buncha goddamn prima donnas. — Gary Reilly

I expected Los Angeles to be slick and modern, but overall it had a rundown look and feel to it. Sort of like Denver. Sort of like every city in America I've lived in, except San Francisco, which looks cool. — Gary Reilly

I began to parse the sentence. This is what English majors do. It's what we're trained to do. We don't know how to do anything else, except drive cabs. — Gary Reilly

Writers, even unpublished writers, have a tendency not to notice what's going on around them when they are the center of attention. — Gary Reilly

I was about to get drawn deeper into the personal lives of not only people, but people I didn't really know. Ironically, those are the kinds of people I like best. I wish I didn't know anybody. I would get along better with them. — Gary Reilly

I was in the land of fakes and frauds and phonies - I felt like saying "Howdy cousin," to everybody who walked by. — Gary Reilly

A self-help guru would call this attitude "bending in the wind," but I just call it "giving up. — Gary Reilly

That was how I was going to get things back to normal - by working. I never thought I would use the words "working" and "normal" in the same sentence, but I'll try anything to avoid facing reality. — Gary Reilly

It was an odd sort of urge, as though I had a craving to clear all the crap out of my life - but if I did that I wouldn't own anything. — Gary Reilly

It's funny how thinking things makes you think other things. I don't think I've ever thought anything without thinking about something else. — Gary Reilly

For the past few weeks I have been laboring under the assumption that if people thought I was dead, they would stop annoying me and leave me alone.
I didn't respond right away. I examined his statement from every angle, and while I admired the logic, the cockeyed optimism left me cold. — Gary Reilly

One thing I had learned in college was that if you ever had a question about truth, reality, or the meaning of existence, read a novel by Albert Camus. Pretty soon you'll be so baffled you'll forget the question. — Gary Reilly

Get thee behind me, whatever you are, that's my motto. — Gary Reilly

To me, knowing how to do something is like cheating.
That's why I never studied in grade school. Studying made passing tests too easy. Anybody can pass a test if he studies. But I wanted to explore the furthest limit of my inh'rnt knowledge. Apparently my limit is C minus. — Gary Reilly

I had learned that some people feel that books are "intrusive," in the sense that books put things in their heads that they don't want there. Some people call these things "ideas." Maybe they're right. Sometimes these ideas sprout into what are known as "thoughts," and you know my feelings about school, government, and big businesses
thoughts are the last things they want rattling around inside people's heads because thoughts inevitably lead to consumer protection, free speech and hippies. — Gary Reilly

You must be compelled by an inner force to read books, listen to music, and view films which serve only to send you spiraling deeper into the bottomless pit of frustration. — Gary Reilly

Occasionally I see rich-looking women on Rollerblades gripping leashes and being towed bodily by golden retrievers. That's my kind of jogging. — Gary Reilly

When I was a teenager, most fathers tended to go berserk when I asked their daughters on a date ... I discovered that all fathers go berserk when their daughters start dating. I have to assume this was because all fathers were once teenagers at some point in their lives, so they had no illusions about whether or not the boys were up to something. — Gary Reilly

My imagination was running amok again. Twice in one night. This never happens when I'm sitting in front of a typewriter. — Gary Reilly

Trash bags are among my favorite consumer products. I wish I had invented them. What a racket. People buy them, take them home, and throw them away. Let's see Bill Gates top that. — Gary Reilly

I don't know why anybody does anything in the winter. I always say, if you want to do something, move to Phoenix. — Gary Reilly

I don't like people to know I think things. — Gary Reilly

I hate it when I get mad at myself because it's impossible to turn on my heel and walk away in a huff and refuse to speak to me again. I've tried it plenty of times, believe me. — Gary Reilly

My fake weekend has begun. I always take Tuesday off, unless my rent is due and I need to pick up some extra cash. I always take Thursday off, too. I have two fake weekends and one real weekend per week. Sometimes I wish there were eight days in a week just so I could squeeze in an extra weekend. But we all have our crosses to bear. — Gary Reilly

There was a little optometrist shop on south Broadway tucked in between a pizza joint and what amounted to a head shop where you could buy glow-in-the-dark posters, bongs, and whatever else the hippies began marketing after they went commercial in the '70s ... I had never visited the optometrist shop. The entrance had a 1930s look that I liked - art deco molded-tin awning over the doorway, and Bakelite tiles on the foyer walls. It looked like the kind of business that would be owned by an elderly optometrist who had serviced families for generations and personally ground lenses in his back room. I liked the look of the shop, but I drove right past it on my way to Sight City!!! where you could buy Two Pair for the Price of One!!! according to the billboards plastered all over Denver blocking every decent view of the Rocky Mountains. — Gary Reilly

I had never liked bullying of any sort, especially when an individual acquires his courage by becoming part of a faceless mob. I always say if you need fake courage, get it out of a bottle like I do. — Gary Reilly

Late Friday morning I was driving toward Boulder. I was seated in "Doctor Lovebeads Cosmic Wonderbus and Mobile Mercantile." That entire phrase was painted in psychedelic colors on both sides of the van. But I left out the possessive apostrophe on "Lovebus[']" in order to show my contempt for bourgeois conformity. — Gary Reilly

I'll take my alkaloid diuretics wherever I can get them. If there isn't a 7-11 in the vicinity, a Winchell's donut shop is Plan B. The joe at both places is almost indistinguishable, like the difference between Johnny Walker and Cutty Sark, but only cab drivers and hobos draw such fine distinctions. — Gary Reilly

I was driving pretty much the way everyone drives in LA, like elephants dancing on each others' backs at a circus. — Gary Reilly

I guess I was sort of like a person who has seen a really great movie or read a really great book and then ran around trying to get his friends to read it. You're bursting to let everyone know that they should take some time to enrich their lives. Why I think their lives will be enriched if they listen to me, I don't know. — Gary Reilly

A lot of artists start out as failed poets, then move on to being failed short-story writers before they finally break through to the big time and become failed novelists. — Gary Reilly

They say that a man has to want to quit before he can stop working, that nobody can stop working for him. His first step is to make a fearless inventory of his life and admit to himself that he has a job. — Gary Reilly

I don't think there is anything that annoys me as much as having to "be" somewhere. It seems like every bad thing that ever happened to me happened when I was somewhere. — Gary Reilly

I didn't offer to help him carry any of his stuff. That's the unwritten code between cabbies and movers ... It's his punishment for tricking the cab driver into playing Mayflower, because he knows he's not going to give you a tip, and so do you. — Gary Reilly

The word deadline is defined as "a boundary line in a prison that prisoners can cross only at the risk of being shot." I — Gary Reilly