Top 83 Tao Lin Quotes
#1. I don't like happy people," Andrew said. "They're already happy; they don't need to be liked." "Wow, so selfless," Mark said. "You're a saint. I commend your selflessness. Amazing.
Tao Lin
#2. I like most any place if I have Internet access.
Tao Lin
#3. Moose had no friends that year. A lot of the time a moose would feel tired and lean against other moose. Only there wouldn't be moose there and the moose would fall.
Tao Lin
#4. The correct arrangement of words will make these bad feelings go away tonight.
Tao Lin
#5. I don't think music affects what words I choose to type in what order, within what punctuation, at this point, because I'm rereading and editing each sentence, at this point, in my published books, probably 100-150 times each, on average, and listening to probably 20-60 different songs in that time.
Tao Lin
#6. If I don't like someone and I start reading their stuff, it seems like my brain will just automatically start criticizing everything that's there. It's really hard to read a book without having all this outside information telling you what to think about it.
Tao Lin
#7. I try not to think of myself as a person
but a metal object, built suddenly by machines in complete darkness
something impossible to hurt with a shovel
Tao Lin
#8. Everyone is folding boxes. Andrew is folding boxes. If the entire job were to fold boxes people would scream. They would fold, and sometimes scream, existentially, then be dragged into a field and beaten into a paste. Sometimes there would be a killing rampage.
Tao Lin
#9. PRO TIP: IF YOU'RE SAD AND ALONE IN THE PLACE YOU LIVE THEN YOU GO TO ANOTHER PLACE YOU WILL STILL BE SAD AND ALONE WHEN YOU COME BACK
Tao Lin
#10. Lately, they were always reassuring each other that nothing was wrong; and probably it was true - life wasn't supposed to be incredible, after all. Life wasn't some incredible movie. Life was all the movies, ever, happening at once. There were good ones, bad ones, some went straight to video.
Tao Lin
#11. My publisher had mailed [Bret Easton Ellis] Richard Yates. And when I talked to him he said he had read all my prose books. And he said something like, "You got a lot of mileage out of Dakota Fanning."
Tao Lin
#12. Regarding drugs: just the existence of drugs seems troubling to me.
Tao Lin
#13. I think Bret Easton Ellis has said that he doesn't completely identify with his characters. And I think he has referred to them as immoral before.
Tao Lin
#14. As a child, she'd always had what she imagined were fascinating thoughts, but didn't ever say them. Once, as a little girl, at recess, she thought that if she ran very fast at a pole and then caught it and swung quickly around, part of her would keep going, and she would become two girls.
Tao Lin
#15. My face always looks bored or depressed. It's not an accurate impression.
Tao Lin
#16. Fucked people, great weather.
Tao Lin
#17. If a context and a goal is defined I could say if it's good or bad. But overall I don't view things as good or bad. So I'm like a robot or computer in that sense. So maybe that's why people don't think they know me when they read my writing.
Tao Lin
#18. I don't actually enjoy parties or relationships, I just like the idea that I could maybe be in either of those things
Tao Lin
#19. I like reading books where people with a lot of money use it to do whatever they want. Like stay in expensive hotels and do whatever drugs they want and fly wherever they want.
Tao Lin
#21. My first book was poetry, but I didn't write it first. I wrote it third. So my first two books were prose.
Tao Lin
#22. I was delivering pizzas at Domino's. I was 17 maybe. I liked it a lot. Just driving in the nice weather and listening to music.
Tao Lin
#23. Thousands of years from now they will use my fossil remains as an example of a mistake in the evolutionary process
Tao Lin
#24. Sad things are beautiful only from a distance
therefore you just want to get away from them
from a distance of one hundred and thirty years
... i'm going to distance myself until the world is beautiful
Tao Lin
#25. Loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shape
of a helicopter the same size as the helicopter
and that's it's only skill
and it isn't good enough
but it's still amazing.
Tao Lin
#26. On average, since the urge to kill myself isn't so strong that I actually kill myself, the world is worth living in.
Tao Lin
#27. Matt would stare at Andrew for 10 minutes. It's depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat.
Tao Lin
#28. Sam looked at the sky to see if there were a lot of stars. There seemed to be a normal amount of stars.
Tao Lin
#29. A child said to me 'Do you want to see my penis?' and I said 'Maybe when you're older' and his mom said 'What's wrong with you?' so I said 'Okay, show me your penis now I guess
Tao Lin
#30. I may not be confident or ambitious but at least I'm not confident and ambitious
Tao Lin
#31. Sorry, I'd love to hang out with you but this alcohol isn't going to drink itself into incoherence and liver failure
Tao Lin
#32. If I were really rich, I would be flying places, I think.
Tao Lin
#33. It seems like for the last 10 years, I've just been investing in the future.
Tao Lin
#34. I like part-time jobs in restaurants.
Tao Lin
#35. Good morning, this is Dan Rather, with the news. Today, [person] died in an insanely nonhumorous manner
Tao Lin
#36. I think Gmail chats are different than IRL conversations because Gmail chats are saved by Gmail exactly as they occurred. I like texts and emails. Seems like I don't have anything to say that isn't obvious about texts, emails, and Gmail chats.
Tao Lin
#37. Do you sometimes look up from the computer and look around the room and know you are alone, I mean really know it, then feel scared ?
Tao Lin
#38. I feel 'proud' whenever I feel that I've worked on something for a certain amount of time with a certain amount of attention. I'm not sure if I think in terms of 'pride' though.
Tao Lin
#39. I don't know what Douglas Coupland thinks about his writing. I've read maybe one page of one of his books and didn't think I was similar to him. But it seems like people just compare you to anyone, pretty much.
Tao Lin
#40. Life, people learned, was not easy. Life was not cake. Life was not a carrot cake.
Tao Lin
#41. I think I've written about family and things in 'Taipei' which could be considered Asian culture.
Tao Lin
#42. I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things, but I don't view those effects as good or bad. If a context and a goal is defined, I could say if it's good or bad. But overall, I don't view things as good or bad.
Tao Lin
#43. As a teenager i experienced existential despair as an unsexy sensation of repressed orgasm in the chest; today i experience existential despair as a distinct sensation of wanting to lecture you on how i am better than you, without crushing your hopes and dreams
Tao Lin
#44. Yeah. I like Chopin. I feel like Chopin is 'emo.' Do you like Chopin?
Tao Lin
#45. He asked if there were more things she had lied about. She said she had to think. She said she was still thinking. After about two minutes she said she was still thinking.
Tao Lin
#46. I listen to music almost any time I'm not sleeping, 'hanging out' with specific people, or showering.
Tao Lin
#47. I just keep investing in the future, and I haven't reached the point where I'm not doing that.
Tao Lin
#48. I don't view my memory as accurate or static - and, in autobiographical fiction, my focus is still on creating an effect, not on documenting reality - so 'autobiographical,' to me, is closer in meaning to 'fiction' than 'autobiography.'
Tao Lin
#49. Note the similarities with buddhism
a buddhist who has achieved nirvana is not sad
primarily because it does not know the concept
of sad [ ... ]
Tao Lin
#50. Pessoa talked about there being no escape," the bear said. "He was right.
Tao Lin
#51. I don't have specific music for when I'm writing. I'm usually listening to the same playlist or 'artist' before I arrive at the computer as when I'm walking somewhere after leaving the computer.
Tao Lin
#52. The idea of 'advice,' in terms of telling people advice or asking people for advice, has become not comprehensible to me, to a certain degree, due to feeling, like, for something to be accurately defined as 'good' or 'bad,' I would want to know the context, goal, perspective for it.
Tao Lin
#53. Don't be stupid and awkward," the dolphin says. "You want to walk together or not?"
"You are a stupid piece of shit. Go away from me."
The dolphin goes into the center of a circular clothing rack and quietly cries.
Tao Lin
#54. I think it would be funny for people to read in obituaries of me that my major contribution to the arts was the popularization of the phrases 'neutral facial expression' and 'screaming in agony.'
Tao Lin
#55. Patriotism is the belief that not all human lives are worth the same.
Tao Lin
#56. I know Bret Easton Ellis has said he has some amount of empathy for every character he has written about, though, so maybe I am similar to him in terms of that. I'm not sure what he thinks exactly.
Tao Lin
#57. I'm not being secretive about anything. I just actually don't have opinions about society.
Tao Lin
#58. Just became so overwhelmed with potential food options that i actually cried
Tao Lin
#59. My favourite emotions include 'brief calmness
in good weather' and 'i am the only person alive
Tao Lin
#60. You were one person alive and your brain was encased in a skull. There were other people out there. It took effort to be connected.
Tao Lin
#61. It seems like I'm not [happy]. Because if you look at my tweets and what I think and say, it seems like I'm worried about what's going to happen.
Tao Lin
#62. A lot of people think I'm a vegan. I'm not.
Tao Lin
#63. I felt confused, to some degree, by everything - but in a delayed manner, in that I seemed to be repeatedly realizing that I felt confused, instead of feeling directly confused
Tao Lin
#64. I don't think I understand the concept of regret. Because if I regret anything, that would mean, like, I hate myself.
Tao Lin
#65. Sometimes an alien would stand with a moose, not because of solidarity, but because of accidentally doing it.
Tao Lin
#66. A kind of emptiness existed in the center of my bagel; really
it was just the hole that's in the middle
of all bagels; 'i need to go read my blog
to find out what my politics are
Tao Lin
#67. people who don't know what to title their novels/movies can title them 'where's waldo' and insert waldo (or not, depending on tone) in one scene
Tao Lin
#68. Does a society exist where it's become acceptable to wear 'helmets' enclosing one's entire head when in public to preempt social interaction
Tao Lin
#69. Periods are the only thing i can think of where its a problem if you don't bleed
Tao Lin
#70. I don't have a definition for depression. I'm productive, and that's not a sign of depression, right? And I don't have weeks where I don't leave my bed. It seems like depressed people have those.
Tao Lin
#71. Nice said Paul staring transfixed at Fran's delicate and extreme gaze, like that of a skeleton with eyeballs, or a person with their face peeled off.
Tao Lin
#72. It seems like most people will agree that they would like if they were treated by other people based on what they have concretely done in their life, not what other people have done, with their lives.
Tao Lin
#73. I don't know how to incorporate regret. But I'll say, like, "It affected me that way," "I learned this," "Next time maybe I'll do it differently."
Tao Lin
#74. Life has never died, which is something that I think people ignore.
Tao Lin
#75. I like Bret Easton Ellis' sense of humor. I feel like mine is sometimes similar to his. And how his characters sometimes seem really confused in a humorous manner. I like that. And I have that sometimes in my characters.
Tao Lin
#76. i recommend the phrase 'pineapple ass
Tao Lin
#77. I haven't written about an immigrant experience because I haven't experienced that before and am focused on existential themes.
Tao Lin
#78. I actually don't have ... opinions. I'm not being secretive about anything. I just actually don't have opinions about society. I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things but I don't view those effects as good or bad.
Tao Lin
#79. I wouldn't think of my characters' moralities at all. And I think I identify fully with every main character I've written about and would say that I am them pretty much. So in terms of that I don't think I'm similar to Bret Easton Ellis .
Tao Lin
#80. Haley Joel Osment said "Party girl" which was a term they had for people who did not speak in a quiet monotone and were not severely detached.
Tao Lin
#81. If you're, like, a PhD student in English, and you look at each instance that Richard Yates is mentioned in the book ... it has sort of it's own narrative that one could analyze and write literary criticism about.
Tao Lin
#82. I just don't feel good if I'm repeating myself.
Tao Lin
#83. We have been sitting here all night bullshitting and we still don't know what to do.
Tao Lin
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