James Frey Quotes

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

For the worst things of our lives, it is sometimes the best way, to never speak of them again. ~ James Frey

The life of the Addict is always the same. There is no excitement, no glamour, no fun. There are no good times, there is no joy, there is no happiness. There is no future and no escape. There is only an obsession. An all-encompassing, fully enveloping, completely overwhelming obsession. To make light of it, brag about it, or revel in the mock glory of it is not in any way, shape or form related to its truth, and that is all that matters, the truth. ~ James Frey

She feels and she cries. It is to be admired. ~ James Frey

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

You only live once, buy Picassos whenever possible. ~ James Frey

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

That was beautiful.
She is holding my hand.
No, it wasn't.
If she let go, I would fall apart.
It was. It was beautiful because it was honest and it was beautiful because it hurt and it was beautiful because you didn't have to tell it to me.
Fall apart.
It makes me feel like shit. ~ James Frey

The promise of eternal life makes people forsake the life they're given. ~ James Frey

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

This is how it has always been with me. Give me something good, I'll destroy it. Love me, I'll destroy you. I have never felt deserving of anything in my life. ~ James Frey

[...]life was simple, we were born and we were going to die. There was nothing for us before we were born, and there would be nothing for us after we died. While we were here we had choices. While we were alive we had choices. We could choose to be and do whatever we wanted. ~ James Frey

Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there.
What are you doing here?
I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you.
What do you want.
I want you to stop.
I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks.
It's okay.
I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held.
It's okay.
Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and f ~ James Frey

You want worship for what? For what you give? For how you treat us? For what you allow to happen? For the hatred that exists that you don't stop? For the violence that you don't stop? For the death that you don't stop? Man killing man killing women killing children that you don't stop. And you want worship? You want us on our knees? You want devotion? You want exaltation? You want faith? A crown of thorns pressed into the skull bleeding at the tips. ~ James Frey

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

I love the process of being alone in a room. ~ James Frey

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers. ~ James Frey

Thank you Lilly, Leonard, MIles, I love you and I thank you ~ James Frey

There's something, I think, that gets lost when we write something - something gets lost in the translation. So I speak everything out, and it's more important how it sounds. And applying that to more formal aspects of writing. ~ James Frey

Light streamed through one of the windows and across her face and I have never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in my life. If my heart had stopped at that moment I would have fallen happy and fallen full and I would have seen in life all that I had wanted to see and all that I needed to see. Fall. Let me fall. ~ James Frey

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

Blood is blood and it's all red. Show me what's in your heart and in your eyes. ~ James Frey

I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag full of mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can. ~ James Frey

In my mind my obituary is done.It is done and it is right. It tells the truth and as awful as it can be, the truth is what matters. It is what I should be remembered by, if I'm remembered at all. Remember the truth. that is all that matters ~ James Frey

In 1918, a Chinese immigrant working in a Los Angeles noodle factory invented the fortune cookie. He did so believing that a cookie with a positive message in it would raise the spirits of the city's poor. ~ James Frey

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

I felt like I had lost something. But not something silly, like my keys or my gum; more like my arm or my foot, something that really mattered. Like something that I could live without, but would make life much harder if it were missing. And life is hard enough. Life is hard enough with everything we're given. ~ James Frey

I think about her. I think about the first time I saw her.. I had a book in my hand and I was reading and for some reason I looked up ... She didn't see me. She didn't see me, but I saw her. ~ James Frey

The Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel.
I broke something, Old Man.
How badly is it broken?
It's in a million little pieces.
I'm afraid I can't help you.
Why?
There's nothing you can do.
Why?
It can't be fixed.
Why?
It's broken beyond repair. It's in a million little pieces. ~ James Frey

I've always wondered what it would be like if the Messiah, or Christ Returned, were actually alive and living in our society; who would that person be, how we would identify them, how would they live and what would they believe in, how would society react to them? I decided to try and tell my idea of that story. ~ James Frey

She is sitting on frozen ground wrapped in a blanket, her pale skin shining. She smiles and she stands and without words, she steps forward, opens the blanket, envelops me within it and within her and within myself. She kisses my cheek, the one not torn, she wraps me and she holds me. Her arms are thin but strong. She whispers in my ear, I'm glad you're here. ~ James Frey

I think as an artist or a writer it's OK to want to control your own work. ~ James Frey

I skip the introduction. If the book goes in the trash, I want it to go because of my thoughts on it, not because of some Asshole's thoughts who wrote the introduction. ~ James Frey

Jovinderpihainu breaks it. You are right to ask, Shari. But there is a difference between being honest and being right. Honest men lie all the time, believing that they tell the truth. Much evil is borne on the back of honest ~ James Frey

Enemies are a given. Friends are not. ~ James Frey

I'm tired of making people sad and I'm tired of disappointing them and I'm tired of seeing them break. I have seen this too many times. He will be the last. ~ James Frey

There are no words and there is no singing, but the music has a voice. It is an old voice and a deep voice, like the stump of a sweet cigar or a shoe with a hole. It is a voice that has lived and lives, with sorrow and shame, ecstasy and bliss, joy and pain, redemption and damnation. It is a voice with love and without love. I like the voice, and though I can't talk to it, I like the way it talks to me. It says it is all the same, Young Man. Take it and let it be. ~ James Frey

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

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

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

There is, though, nothing that prepares us for the worst things in our life. There is nothing you can do to stop the shock, or buffer the pain. ~ James Frey

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have. ~ James Frey

It's when I'm standing six feet away from you and not being able to find the words to tell you how much I love you and how much I miss you that I want to just scream to the whole room that I'm still in love with you. It's when I'm sitting alone with the phone in my hand dialing your number and hanging up that I would trade a thousand tomorrows for just one yesterday. Then I could just call you to tell you goodnight. It's when I am really sad about something and need someone to talk to that I realize you're the only one who really knew me at all. It's when I cry myself to sleep at night and it hits me how much I would give to hold you at that very moment. It's when I think about you that I realize no one else in the world is meant for me. ~ James Frey

I, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due. ~ James Frey

Sleep is still difficult I sleep for three or four hours a day. Usually sometime in the afternoon. I walk in the cold, keep myself numb. I cry less, and less. (James Frey, pg.88) ~ James Frey

Being a writer now is about so much more than writing. There's publishing, touring, marketing, web presence. ~ James Frey

I turn and I look back across the lake. The mist is gone and the ice diminished, the drip of the icicles quick and heavy. The sun is up and the sky is blue empty blue light blue clear blue. I would drink the sky if I could drink it, drink it and celebrate it and let it fill me and become me. I am getting better. Empty and clear and light and blue. I am getting better. ~ James Frey

On the left side of my cheek a row of crusted scabbed stitches hold a deep 1 inch-long gash together. My nose is bent and swollen beneath its bandage and red lines streak from my nostrils. There are black and yellow bruises beneath both eyes, there is blood both wet and dry everywhere. (James Frey) ~ James Frey

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

Trauma is survivable, but often not much more. It kills you while allowing you to still live. ~ James Frey

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

I always wanted to write a book about LA, a big ambitious book. Nobody had ever really done it with LA- treating the city seriously as a major economic and cultural power, as the embodiment of 21st century America. ~ James Frey

I can feel blood dripping from the wounds on my face and I can feel my heart beating and I can feel the weight of my life beginning to drop and I realize why dawn is called mourning. ~ James Frey

Writing's not precious to me. It's not a thing that requires specific environment. You know, it's my job. Just like anybody with a job, you have to do your job when you don't feel like it, regardless of how good or bad the conditions are, regardless of how good or bad you might feel on any particular day. ~ James Frey

But we are what we are, and humans will always hate. ~ James Frey

The Bible was written two thousand years ago. The world is a different place now. Stories that had meaning then are meaningless now. Beliefs that might have been valid then are invalid now. Those books should be looked at in the same way we look at anything of that age with interest with an acknowledgement of the historical importance but they should not be thought of as anything that has any value. ~ James Frey

Love only brought me lonliness and horror. ~ James Frey

He smiles, even though he knows it will never be like that again, even though he knows the world no longer wants what he has, what he loves, what he has devoted his life to building and maintaining. He lies in bed and stares at the photo and smiles. His brain says let it go, sell it. His heart says no. His sense of reason and his brain tell him to do it. His heart says no. Whenever he allows himself to hear it, his heart says no, no, no. All day long, everyday, his heart screams no. ( ... ) he lies in bed and stares at the photo and smiles. His brain says let it go, sell it. His heart says no.
His heart says no. ~ James Frey

What's crazy is living your life according to some book written by someone who couldn't imagine what your life would be like. ~ James Frey

The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, conflict. ~ James Frey

Practice not wanting, desiring, judging, doing, fighting, knowing. Practice just being. Everything will fall into place. ~ James Frey

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

I know a bit about the loss of dignity. I know that when you take away a man's dignity there is a hole, a deep black hole filled with despair, humiliation and self-hatred, filled with emptiness, shame and disgrace, filled with loss and isolation and hell. It's a deep, dark, horrible fucking hole, and that hole is where people like me live our sad-ass, fucked-up, dignity free, inhuman lives, and where we die, alone, miserable, wasted and forgotten. ~ James Frey

People don't want to accept the responsibility for their own weakness, so they place the blame on something that they're not responsible for, like disease or genetics. ~ James Frey

Let things be, let yourself be, let everything be and accept it as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less. ~ James Frey

My life has been like all the lives, long and hard and full of sadness and confusion and horror, a frightening, difficult dream punctuated by brief moments of joy. And as is the case with all people's lives, the moments of joy are never often enough and never long enough. ~ James Frey

Its not just a smile of momentary happiness. When it disappears from my face, it will stay with me. ~ James Frey

You don't have to follow anybody's conventions. ~ James Frey

I am alone. I have no one to talk to and no one to call ~ James Frey

A miracle is changing someone's life. Freeing them from whatever bonds them. Giving them the gift of being able to live the way they dream of living. ~ James Frey

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

i am afraid of dreaming now a days ~ Bibek Ranjan

You can tell yourself anything you want, but until you believe what you're telling yourself, you're wasting words. ~ James Frey

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

There is no Higher Power or any God who is responsible for what I do and for what I have done and for who I am. There is no Higher Power or any God who will cure me. There is no Meeting where any amount of whining, complaining and blaming is going to make me feel any better. ~ James Frey

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

I reach up and out and I put my arms around Leonard and I hug him. I don't know any words, so I let my actions speak. Strong, simple and deep appreciation. The actions speak true. ~ James Frey

The point of what I do is that it doesn't really matter what a book or a story is as long it moves you, informs you, challenges you, entertains you, or changes you. ~ James Frey

America was first colonized by Puritans. Most of our earliest immigrants, and many since, have come here in order to practice their religious beliefs as they please. Our culture has always been, and will most likely always be, profoundly influenced by religion. ~ James Frey

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

I listen to the tick of an unseen clock marking moments of time long passed ... ~ James Frey

She is becoming what I wanted she the last with the Arctic eyes to become, which is someone who loves me. Simply and truly as I am. It is hard to stare at her because I know she is starting to love me, I am starting to love her back. I don't care what she's done or who she's done it with, I don't care about whatever demons may be in her closet. I care about how she makes me feel and she makes me feel strong and safe and calm and warm and true. It is hard to stare because I am forced to contemplate giving it up. It is hard to stare, but I do it anyway. ~ James Frey

I hold beneath pale green. ~ James Frey

If you care about what other people think, you will always be their prisoner. ~ James Frey

He pulled out turned west and started driving towards the glow it was thousands of miles away, he started driving towards the glow. ~ James Frey

The afternoon and the early evening slide by in a lidded daze where the ability to think in any identifiable way disappears and where every moment seems to be an eternity. ~ James Frey

There is no such things as God's word on earth. Or if there is it is not to be found in books. -Then where is it to be found?- In love. In the laughter of children. In a gift given. In a life saved. In the quiet of morning. In the dead of night. In the sound of the ocean, or the sound of a car. It can be found in anything, anywhere. It is the fabric of our lives, our feelings, the people we live with, things we know to be real. ~ James Frey

In 1970, a superior Court judge issues an order forcing the desegregation of Los Angeles schools. The judge survives an assassination attempt and loses his job in the next election. ~ James Frey

I sleep during the day. I still dream about drinking and drugs. Sometimes I wake to a hang-over, sometimes I wake to a trickle of blood from my nose, sometimes I wake scared and shaking. I read, go to museums and visit Lilly in the afternoon. Sometimes I read to her, sometimes I talk to her, sometimes I just sit and remember the times, remember the times, remember the times. (James Frey, pg.119) ~ James Frey

The clock holds me nowhere. Nowhere. Nowhere. There is nothing else but now and the shifting depth of the night. I sit at a table alone smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and listening and surviving. I should not be here or anywhere. I should not be breathing or taking space. I should not have been given this moment or anything else. I should not have this opportunity again to live. I do not deserve it or deserve anything yet it is here and I am here and I Have it all of it still. I won't have it again. This moment or this chance they are the same and they are mine if I choose them and I do. I want them. Now and as long as I can have them they are both precious and fleeting and gone in the blink of an eye don't waste them. A moment and an opportunity and a life, all in the unseen tick of a clock holding me nowhere. My heart is beating. The walls are pale and quiet. I am surviving. ~ James Frey

People call me all sorts of things. I don't even care what they call me. ~ James Frey

All of us started normal. All of us started out as functioning human beings with the potential to do almost anything we wanted, but somewhere along the paths of our lives, we got lost. ~ James Frey

In life we often look to others for simple, but difficult answers, despite the fact that we have those answers ourselves. ~ James Frey

About life:
It is not complicated unless I make it so. It is not difficult unless I allow it to be. A second is no more than a second, a minute no more than a minute, a day no more than a day. They pass. All things and all time will pass. Don't force or fear, don't control or lose control. Don't fight and don't stop fighting. Embrace and endure. If you embrace, you will endure. ~ James Frey

I go to my Room and I drink and I smoke some cigarettes and I think about her. I drink and I smoke and I think about her and at a certain point blackness comes and my memory fails me. ~ James Frey

I look at pastries and cakes, tarts and pies. My body craves sugar, always craves sugar. Years of alcohalism and the high level of sugar in alcohal created the craving, which I feed with candy and soda. ~ James Frey

It hits my arms, my legs. It burns and it hurts and I sit and I take the burn and I take the hurt. Not because I like it, because I don't. I sit and I take the pain and I ignore the pain and I forget the pain because I know that pain and suffering are different things. Pain is the feeling. Suffering is the effect that pain inflicts. If one can endure pain, one can live without suffering. If one can learn to withstand pain, one can withstand anything. If one can learn to control pain, one can learn to control oneself. I have lived a life full with suffering. I have lived a life without control. I have spent twenty-three years destroying myself and everything and everyone around me. I don't want to live that way anymore. I take the pain so that I will never suffer. I take the pain to experience control. I take the pain. ~ James Frey

I choose to be the person that i want to be ~ James Frey

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

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