Peter Handke Quotes

In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust writers of fiction who are assured literary critics; it makes me suspect that they favour the word over the world it should describe. Such scribes fall victim too easily to the solecism of equating style with morality.

Whenever I write something, I always want to make sure that what I write is defensible.

Hemingway's remarks are not literature.

If you gonna challenge my ways, know my history. Don't put nobody in my face that don't know about me, or they here to write an article on someone they thought was hot when they was hot. Come on, man. I been hot.

You want to believe in leaders, really believe in leaders. You want what they are saying to be truthful, and you want to trust them.

The act of witnessing is important to me; somebody's got to tell the truth, you know what I mean?

A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.

It's not bragging if you can back it up.

When truth is on your side, you don't need support.

It matters if people believe you or not.

I say what I say because I believe it from the bottom of my soul and I can back it up.

A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative.

He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.

The only one I have any trust in is storytelling - there's a couple I have a lot of trust in.

A lot of truths about the living world are recorded in bad books; they are just badly written about.

That complete statement which is literature.

Every kind of writing is hypocritical.

There is no room for the impurities of literature in an essay.... the essay must be pure--pure like water or pure like wine, but pure from dullness, deadness, and deposits of extraneous matter.

I was there when I said it.

I tell the truth. And I know what I'm talking about. That's why I'm a threat.

It would be morally reprehensible not to tell the truth... Everything I have written has stood the test of time.

A great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or agree with it. A great piece of literature simply is . It is a vehicle of truth, but it is not a blueprint, and we tend to confuse the two.

Is that the truth, Jimmy?" I ask without looking at him. "It's the truth and it come to ya!" I smile.

You never have to look over your shoulder when you tell the truth. You never have to remember the details, because they are what they are. And you don't have to make sure your story matches everyone else's.