Manuel Puig Quotes

All my shows are therapy, trying to navigate interesting subjects so I can work them out and to be honest and say some things are beyond the wit of this man.

My significant other right now is myself, which is what happens when you suffer from multiple personality disorder and self-obsession.

The bigger confrontation is the one an individual has with itself.

I tell people not to write too soon about their lives. Writing about yourself too young is loaded with psychological complexities.

The only history is a mere question of one's struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.

I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going through. it's not just a story.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

Anybody can get lost in themselves.

When I read profiles of myself, I sometimes think: 'I have spent my whole life struggling to understand my motivations and impulses, and I've never quite sorted them out.'

A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

The characters I write about are very internal.

I think it's nearly impossible to write something fictional without having it be about yourself in some way or another.

All writing is an act of self-exploration. Even a grocery list says something about you; how much more does a novel say?

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.

There are parts of me that I keep secret even from myself. I have demons and I'd love to be able to healthily look at the demons and still be a wonderful actor and not feel I need them to create.

The stories that I want to tell are completely, well, somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.

I start with something that makes me angry or confused, and then I write about it. It's a form of self-help.

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

I'm trying to figure myself out through my movies. Whether it's big stuff like what we're doing here, or little stuff like, 'Why aren't I happier?' With every film I feel like I'm apologising for something. I feel I'm most successful when I'm looking for something that embarrasses me about my character that I'd like to expose.

I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.

It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

I use my film-making to work through my deep questions and my deep problems. I think I could watch each film and tell you exactly which part of my psyche I'm trying to work out.

I think I'm good at looking moody. I'm not much good at analysing myself, but I tend to fit the strange and tortured characters.