Brooklyn Book Fest Quotables, Starring Richard Price

Richard Price, pretty in pink

A bit of wit and wisdom, scribbled down over the course of a long day at the Brooklyn Book Festival. Writers are indeed wise:

"I just realized, some of you guys are here for traffic tickets."
—Simon Rich, addressing the audience in the Borough Hall Courtroom in which he spoke.

"Being ‘Out of Place' is a good thing, maybe. Being ‘in place' would be like living in Wasilla, Alaska or something."
—Moustafa Bayoumi, explaining how he landed on a panel called "Out of Place."

"Everyone has the same Tom's of Maine toothpaste and the same Macintosh computers and they're all voting for the same people as I am, and it's all so upsetting." —Rivka Galchen, on her hatred of New York City.

"Bocu bucks."
—Richard Price on the reason he writes for the movies and TV.

"Midgets pacing underneath the coffee table"
—Richard Price, on movie actors.

"He was a strange duck…he looked like a runaway on the Minnesota strip."
—Richard Price on meeting Michael Jackson on the set of the "Bad" video, for which he wrote the script.

"MSU—Make Shit Up."
—Richard Price's philosophy regarding fiction and writing for the screen.

"Things have got to end…you want to go out like leaving a restaurant still a little bit hungry."
—Richard Price on the end of the Wire.

"The velvet rope was made for people like me."
—Richard Price on not getting into clubs, unless he's with David Bowie and Mick Jagger.

"I would like to encourage you to stop using made-up verbs like ‘Google.'"
—Ian MacKaye, raging against the corporate machine.

"This guy celebrates junk, and I rage against it."
—Ian MacKaye on Thurston Moore.

"That's how you become famous. You just do some fucking stupid thing over and over again."
—Dorothy Allison, reading from a new short story.

"It's ‘Leethem.'"
—Jonathan Lethem, finally clearing up how his last name is pronounced.