James Salter Life Quotations

There came a time when I felt I was not going to be satisfied with life unless I could write.

The writers of books are companions in one's life and, as such, are often more interesting than other companions.

It's tremendous: this world, this life. Take it while you have it.

Life is weather. Life is meals,

As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is a move.

There is no situation like the open road, and seeing things completely afresh. I'm used to traveling. It's not a question of meeting or seeing new faces particularly, or hearing new stories, but of looking at life in a different way. It's the curtain coming up on another act.

I sometimes say that I don't make anything up - obviously that's not true. But I am uninterested in writers who say that everything comes out of the imagination. I would rather be in a room with someone who is telling the story of his life, which may be exaggerated and even have lies in it, but I want to hear the true story, essentially.

Most writers can write three times as many books as I have and still live a life.