Harry Crews died on Wednesday. He was a prolific writer (17 novels) with a cult following, and, for many years a professor at the University of Florida.
Years ago I read several of his books and I was moved by them. Crews wrote mostly about freakish characters in the South. Some of what he wrote was disgusting, books like "A Feast of Snakes." He believed, more than anything, that writers should be real. They should tell the truth.
Here are a few Harry Crews quotes:
A writer's job is to get naked, to hide nothing, to look away from nothing, to look at it.
There is something beautiful about scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.
Years ago I read several of his books and I was moved by them. Crews wrote mostly about freakish characters in the South. Some of what he wrote was disgusting, books like "A Feast of Snakes." He believed, more than anything, that writers should be real. They should tell the truth.
Here are a few Harry Crews quotes:
A writer's job is to get naked, to hide nothing, to look away from nothing, to look at it.
There is something beautiful about scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.
If you wait until you got
time to write a novel, or time to write a story, or time to read the hundred
thousands of books you should have already read - if you wait for the time, you
will never do it. ‘Cause there ain’t no time; world don’t want you to do that.
World wants you to go to the zoo and eat cotton candy, preferably seven days a
week.
Men to whom God is dead
worship one another.
Alcohol whipped me. Alcohol
and I had many, many marvelous times together. We laughed, we talked, we danced
at the party together; then one day I woke up and the band had gone home and I
was lying in the broken glass with a shirt full of puke and I said, 'Hey, man,
the ball game's up'.
Survival is triumph enough.
Goodbye Harry Crews.
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