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Mark Leyner

Mark Leyner Quotes

Author

Mark Leyner is an American author known for his distinctive humor and satirical style. His works often explore the absurdities and complexities of modern life, involving themes of love, family, culture, and social issues. Born in New York in 1956, his writing career began in the 1980s.

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Famous Mark Leyner Quotes

“A person's name is a fate-conjuring incantation.”

Fate Identity Person Name Incantation

Book:The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Source: The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

“One of the things about Ike that makes him so indisputably a hero is that he doesn't leave his own contradictions to the effete disputations of armchair scholars. He grapples with them himself, in his own lifetime.”

Self Character Personality Hero Morality Integrity Ethics Authenticity Traits Contradictions

Book:The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Source: The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

“So, Strand looked at me, and he said, 'You should write about all this someday.' And I said, 'You mean about all the terrible privations and wrenching traumas from my childhood?' And he said, 'Yes, it would be hilarious!' And I said, 'You mean...nonfiction?”

Childhood Youth Trauma

Book:Gone with the Mind

Source: Gone with the Mind

“Yes, the hermitage is underground--miles beneath the surface of Antarctica. And yes, Ike refers to it as unten--literally 'under' or 'below.' But, hello, it's 'hyperborean'--of or relating to the arctic, frigid, very cold. The opposite of infernally hot. Well, what if it's WAY underground down near the inner core of the earth, where it's like 10,000 degrees? Well, what if it's up your ass where it's like 10,000,000 degrees? Well, what if you're a cocksucking dwarf racist retard midget dickwad? Well, what if you're a fucking scatological-bakery urinal-cake-boss motherfucking fist-fucked cow-pie anal-fissureman motherfucker?”

Ass Fucking Cock Anal Urinal Motherfucker Dickwad

Book:The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Source: The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

“There are enigmas that we can gnaw on throughout our lives from which we derive sustenance, some kind of spiritual nourishment...I'm thinking of certain kinds of riddles and koans and philosophical conundrums, things like that...But there are also enigmas that, throughout our lives, gnaw on us.”

Book:Gone with the Mind

Source: Gone with the Mind

“i am estranged from most men. my american express card says simply: multicellular animal with specialized digestive cavities -- requires corrective glasses”

Experimental Fiction Postmodernist

Book:My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

Source: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

“On our last mission - our "final exam" - we were airlifted to a remote region, and we parachuted directly into a hostile enclave. We had to subdue the enemy using hand-to-hand tactics like tae kwon do and pugil sticks, cut their hair in styles appropriate to their particular face shapes, and give them perms.”

Humor Hair Care

Book:My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

Source: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

“If I were ever asked by some young, sensitive writer just starting out, what key lesson I've learned in life (which I'll never be), I'd probably say that there is no aperture of egress, however tiny and exquisitely sensitive, that can't be turned into an aperture of ingress.”

Book:Gone with the Mind

Source: Gone with the Mind

“fate is the ultimate preexisting condition.”

Happy Camping Happy Playgrounds

Book:The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Source: The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

“I always thought of my work as being animated by a spirit of unhinged generosity.”

Spirit Generosity Animated Generosity Of Spirit

Author:Mark Leyner

“I can tell from about 20 yards away when someone has a manuscript for me. I can just tell - they have that look.”

Looks I Can Yards Manuscripts

Author:Mark Leyner

“I thought of myself as kind of an anarchist all my whole adult life, from the days when I was 15 or 16.”

Kind Whole Adults Anarchist

Author:Mark Leyner

“My relationship with my readers is somewhat theatrical. One of the main things I try to do in my work is delight my readers.”

Trying Reader Delight Theatrical

Author:Mark Leyner

“The interesting thing about something in the back of your mind is that it can travel pretty far back in your mind.”

Mind Interesting Interesting Things

Author:Mark Leyner

“As far as what I do, my value as a writer is certainly not to try to recapitulate a 19th century form. Certain styles of narrative don't conform to my style of experiencing the world.”

World Trying Form Certain Values Century Style Narrative Conform 19th Century Experiencing The World

Author:Mark Leyner

““Et Tu, Babe” was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer’s life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing, it’s my whole life.”

Writing Whole Reading Born Absolutes Whole Life Certainty Solitary Babe Reading And Writing Love Of Reading Absolute Certainty Certainty In Life

Author:Mark Leyner

“I think to simply make fun of something isn't particularly interesting. I try to not just do a parody of something or belittle something or disparage something.”

Thinking Trying Fun Interesting Parody Belittle

Author:Mark Leyner

“My work generally tends to be an all-out, 360-degree subversive take on everything, most of all my own notion of myself as a son, father, husband, human being and male in this culture.”

Humans Culture Father My Own Human Beings Son Husband Degrees Males Notion Subversive Father Husband

Author:Mark Leyner

“People really want to believe that there is no fiction. I think they find it much easier to imagine that novelists are writing memoirs, writing about their lives, because it's difficult to conceive that there's a great imaginary life in which you can participate.”

People Thinking Want Writing Believe Difficult Fiction Imagine Easier Memoir Novelists Imaginary Imagine That Imaginary Life

Author:Mark Leyner

“Sometimes I think my purpose is as a saboteur when I'm working with other people, derailing what they're trying to do or taking things to a ludicrous extremity.”

People Thinking Trying Sometimes Purpose Extremity Working With Others Saboteurs

Author:Mark Leyner

“When I started, I wanted to be thought of as tortured and seductive, not funny, but humor tends to be a reflexive part of a person's sensibility. It's an almost impossible thing to teach anyone, which leads me to believe that it's intuitive.”

Believe Persons Wanted Teach Impossible Sensibility Intuitive Seductive Leading Me Impossible Things

Author:Mark Leyner

“Stand-up comedy had an interesting effect on me in terms of how I started to think about constructing things, because I really loved the interstices, the linkages, or lack thereof.”

Thinking Term Interesting Comedy Effects Stand Up Comedy Linkages

Author:Mark Leyner

“I think people got in touch with me either knowing my work, or probably more frequently just knowing a plot or sort of buzz about something I did and sort of saying, "Get that guy that writes the crazy stuff in here."”

People Thinking Writing Guy Stuff Knowing Crazy Plot That Guy Buzz

Author:Mark Leyner

“One of the things that struck me as unique about Hollywood is that I never had bad meetings. There were all enthusiastic, but meaninglessly enthusiastic.”

Unique Hollywood Meetings Enthusiastic

Author:Mark Leyner

“I think I'm a shy, self-conscious person who thinks he's being looked at and tries to look okay. Not in a hottie, narcissistic way necessarily.”

Thinking Way Trying Looks Persons Self Conscious Okay Shy Self Conscious Narcissistic

Author:Mark Leyner

“I've always wanted to be a poet at the beginning. I would look at my grandparents' books and my parents' books. And in my family, a typical aspirational Jewish family, being a writer was very much exalted, and it seemed impossible to me, that I could ever do something like that.”

Looks Book Wanted Parent Impossible Poet My Family Typical Grandparent Exalted Jewish Family

Author:Mark Leyner

“It's in great joy that we grasp truth.”

Author:Mark Leyner

“I'm fascinated with video games, though I can't really play them. It's definitely an art form that intrigues me to no end, though.”

Art I Can Ends Play Form Games Video Fascinated Intrigue

Author:Mark Leyner

“I think of memory as a game, that is as something one engages in with a very profound kind of "playfulness."”

Thinking Kind Games Memories Profound Think Of Me Playfulness

Author:Mark Leyner

“I've always been entranced with theater.”

Author:Mark Leyner

“My idea with my work is always to fashion something that's impossible to transpose into any other media.”

Ideas Impossible Media Fashion

Author:Mark Leyner

“I'm in that very preliminary stage of wondering how exactly to "pressurize" the novel in some way I've never considered before.”

Way Wonder Novel Stage

Author:Mark Leyner

“People have no idea how much work it is for a man to produce an ejaculation. You have this seminal vesicle churning out this fluid, the prostate gland producing an alkaline solution. It's like having five iron chefs in your crotch working to cook up this stuff.”

People Men Solutions Chef

Author:Mark Leyner

“Actually what's worse than a dog's mouth is a cat's mouth. They're not dirtier per se, but they have sharper teeth, so they are much more likely to go deep, should they bite you.”

Author:Mark Leyner

“I think as I have gotten older, my feelings about my role in the culture as a writer, and me specifically, has changed, and has become more degraded and marginalized. This may be a more personal and psychological than a sociological insight, but I feel more vulnerable.”

Thinking Feelings Culture Changed Insight Psychological Vulnerable Sociological

Author:Mark Leyner

“In me, speaking psychologically, there is always an ongoing struggle between my enormously self-regarding, almost delusionally aspirational, Napoleonic personality and a marginalized one.”

Struggle Personality

Author:Mark Leyner

“When you are a child, you often stare too closely at the wrong thing. I remember the first time I was taken to Yankee Stadium. Someone had spilled something sweet earlier in the day and the ground was covered with ants. I spent the whole game staring at the ants, and that was more fascinating than the game.”

Children Remember Taken Sweet First Time Staring

Author:Mark Leyner

“I have an enduring, very robust infatuation with dictators. I have an infatuation with Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. In the Paris Review interview I did (in 2013), I said my next book, this one, was going to be about Mussolini. I wound up only having a Mussolini cameo in the book.”

Book Endure Wounds Dictator Infatuation Mao

Author:Mark Leyner

“You are fiercely heterosexual and well-formed, and it's no one's business that you've shrunk your parents and keep them in a terranium, but you have a gatling gun for a mouth, and if that's a diary you're producing from your cleavage, I'm leaving.”

Ifs Wells Parent Mouths Gun Leaving Diaries Cleavage

Book:I Smell Esther Williams

Source: I Smell Esther Williams

“Yo! You’re my dope dealer not my thesis adviser. If I wanted your opinion about my dissertation, I’d have asked for it, Motherfucker!”

Ifs Wanted Opinion Dealer Dope Adviser Thesis Dissertation

Book:The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel

Source: The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel

“I dont walk around chuckling all the time. My outlook is very bleak. Its worse than bleak, its apocalyptic.”

Walks Outlook Bleak Apocalyptic

Author:Mark Leyner

“I was an infinitely hot and dense dot.”

Book:My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist: A novel

Source: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist: A novel

“So where does the name Adam's apple come from? Most people say that it is from the notion that this bump was caused by the forbidden fruit getting stuck in the throat of Adam in the Garden of Eden. There is a problem with this theory because some Hebrew scholars believe that the forbidden fruit was the pomegranate. The Koran claims that the forbidden fruit was a banana. So take your pick---Adam's apple, Adam's pomegranate, Adam's banana. Eve clearly chewed before swallowing.”

Source: Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?: More Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whiskey Sour

“I guess I can picture things once they're done - I just can't picture actually doing them.”

Book:The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel

Source: The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel

About the Author

Born: 1956
Known for: Author
Quotes: 44

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Thinking People Trying Believe I Can Impossible Interesting Looks Wanted Writing

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Sugar Frosted NutsackRelated source material

Gone with the MindRelated source material

My Cousin, My GastroenterologistRelated source material

The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A NovelRelated source material

I Smell Esther WilliamsRelated source material

My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist: A novelRelated source material

Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?: More Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whiskey SourRelated source material

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