William Lashner Quotes & Sayings

In fiction, the reader will make jumps with you. If you can make the reader make that leap with you, it's a thrilling moment for everyone. — William Lashner

I like to think I'm writing in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, although I don't ape his style. — William Lashner

A sense of place is very important in writing. — William Lashner

I try to write stories that are thrilling and full of mystery and funny all at the same time, stories that raise moral questions but come up with very few moral answers, stories that emotionally touch readers through the characters. — William Lashner

More than anything in this world, I wish I had been born rich. It would have made up for everything. I'd still be ugly, sure, but I'd be rich and ugly. I'd still be weak and dim and tongue-tied with women, but I'd be rich enough for them not to care. I'd no longer be a social misfit, I'd be eccentric. And most of all, I'd no longer be what I was, I'd be something different. — William Lashner

Be careful what you yearn for, because that which you desire most will either complete you or destroy you, and you don't get to choose. — William Lashner

We were failures, all of us. We told him we had our reasons for the way things had turned out, but he didn't want to hear it. Told us that nothing consumed a man's soul more than the easy excuse. — William Lashner

Drinking tea is like kissing your dog. It's warm and wet, sure, but where's the kick? If I need to, I'll just pick up another Venti at the Starbucks and use the bathroom there. — William Lashner

If he ever had a bright idea it would be beginner's luck. — William Lashner

My great fear in this life didn't have a name that I knew of. I was afraid of remaining exactly who I was, and that phobia instilled a shiver of fear into every one of my days. Something as simple as a fear of cats would have been a blessing. — William Lashner

We were, all of us, prisoners of our character, unable to alter our true inner natures. When we said we had changed, what had only really changed was our luck. Put us in the same circumstances as our previous folly and suddenly we'd revert, all of us, to what we were. That's what I believed — William Lashner

When I write legally, I try to write very plain, very vanilla, very clear. — William Lashner

And I guess what was bothering me the most was that he had blasted away the fiction with which I had justified the weakness in myself that seemed to stay my hand whenever I was finally reaching for the life I so desired. Sure I always had my reasons, failure always does, but underlying the hesitancy was a belief I somehow couldn't shake. We are what we are, we can't transform ourselves, the die is cast and we play out our fates. I might hit upon the million-dollar case, I might stumble upon the love of my life, something hard and clean might fall into my lap and change everything, but it really wouldn't change anything. I'd still be Victor Carl, I'd still be second tier and second class, I'd still be less than I ever hoped to be. — William Lashner

Now, at the end of the long journey from Vegas, as I turned into Patriots Landing and drove past the twin white lions, the fearful clench of my stomach finally eased. I glanced at the rearview mirror and let out a breath of relief at what I didn't see as I passed the very model house where my wife and I had made our choice. The roads were lined with examples of all the houses we considered that day, each looking neatly squared away on its suitably sized lot, the Carter Braxtons, the George Wyeths, even the insipid Patrick Henrys with their fake-brick fronts. — William Lashner

It's all part of the bartender's creed: make them fresh, make them cold, but most of all, if they're a little overeager, make them wait. — William Lashner

I write novels with a lawyer as the hero, no matter how oxymoronic that might sound. — William Lashner

There's a place you can get to. It's hard to find and it's easy to fall out of, but there it is, that place. It is the sweetest place you've never been and it's called I Don't Give a Crap. Book yourself a ticket. — William Lashner

We put the fun in dysfunction. — William Lashner

You don't want to hear what I have to say. You only want me to say what you want to hear. But trust me when I tell you that you won't ever get all you want. You'll just grow frustrated and bitter, and you'll end up doing things that will kill the best part of you. — William Lashner

Unlike the rest of you, I cheerfully admit to my own utter selfishness. I am self-made, self-absorbed, self-serving, self-referential, even self-deprecating, in a charming sort of way. In short, I am all the selfs except selfless. Yet every so often I run across a force of nature that shakes my sublime self-centeredness to its very roots. Something that tears through the landscape like a tornado, leaving nothing but ruin and reexamination in its wake. — William Lashner

It's funny what kind of hell you can get used to. — William Lashner

Life is unbearably perverse; that which we most seek to avoid always becomes unavoidable. — William Lashner

People read legal writing differently. When you're at the crux of a legal argument, every step is a step in the argument. The judge will see any holes. If you do that in fiction, it's too long and boring. — William Lashner

I received some really bad news. I'm not okay."
A bolt of terror slashed through me. She had some sort of disease, I could tell. She had cancer. I was sure of it. I had a vision of Carol Kingsly in her hospital bed, her limbs withered, her head shaved, looking up at me with sunken eyes. Gad. Looking up at me with the expectation that I would care for her. Me. Somehow now she was my responsibility? We had only been going out for a couple of weeks, I didn't even like her all that much, and still I was on the hook? What were the rules on that? And with whom could I lodge my appeal? — William Lashner

I'm going to book-and-author dinners, and I'm the author! — William Lashner

I don't trust novels with points, do you? If a novel is only about a point, the writer should just say it in as few words as possible so we can take it in and go back to watching 'The Bachelor' on television. — William Lashner