Literary Birthday – 4 December – William Diehl

William Diehl was born 4 December 1924 and died 24 November 2006.

Quotes

1. What’s happening is that we’re living in a world full of people who want us to think the way they do and act the way they do and believe the way they do and if we don’t, if we don’t conform, they destroy us. And you know the irony? They’re always in the minority.
2. I find that subconsciously things from my past keep getting in and coming out of the books.
3. What it is, is playing out your fantasies on paper.
4. If I’m angry, I go in and write a violent passage for a book. When I come out, I don’t even want to step on an ant. If I’m writing about a character that I really like, and I know that the character is going to be killed, I can get depressed for a couple of days.
5. Most writers become very involuted and difficult to deal with when they’re working…What other occupation is there where you can be totally isolated and deal with yourself in whatever terms you want to deal with yourself in?

William Diehl was an American novelist and photojournalist. At 50 he began a writing career. His first novel, Sharky’s Machine, became a movie directed by and starring Burt Reynolds. He completed eight more novels, including Primal Fear, which also became a movie by the same name starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton

Source for quotes

Images of author can be found here

 by Amanda Patterson

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