Gary Reilly > Quotes

“I had never liked bullying of any sort, especially when an individual acquires his courage by becoming part of a faceless mob. I always say if you need fake courage, get it out of a bottle like I do.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“One thing I had learned in college was that if you ever had a question about truth, reality, or the meaning of existence, read a novel by Albert Camus. Pretty soon you'll be so baffled you'll forget the question.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“My imagination was running amok again. Twice in one night. This never happens when I’m sitting in front of a typewriter.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“The difference between a regular Catholic education and a Jesuit education is the difference between the army and the marines.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“Most of the ideas I’ve gotten for novels or screenplays have occurred to me while I was either shaving or taking a bath. A number have occurred to me while I was driving 127. I rarely get ideas when seated in front of my typewriter, which I find ironic because I have always suspected that typing somehow plays a key role in writing.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I began to parse the sentence. This is what English majors do. It's what we're trained to do. We don't know how to do anything else, except drive cabs.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“I expected Los Angeles to be slick and modern, but overall it had a rundown look and feel to it. Sort of like Denver. Sort of like every city in America I’ve lived in, except San Francisco, which looks cool.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“Golf baffles me. They says it’s a sport, and I have to take their word for it, but anything that involves having fun while standing up doesn’t interest me. That includes dancing. NASCAR I can understand. In fact, anything that involves sitting down automatically has my interest...”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“To me, knowing how to do something is like cheating.

That's why I never studied in grade school. Studying made passing tests too easy. Anybody can pass a test if he studies. But I wanted to explore the furthest limit of my inh'rnt knowledge. Apparently my limit is C minus.”
― Gary Reilly, The Asphalt Warrior

“... occasionally I see rich-looking women on Rollerblades gripping leashes and being towed bodily by golden retrievers. That's my kind of jogging.”
― Gary Reilly, The Asphalt Warrior

“There was a little optometrist shop on south Broadway tucked in between a pizza joint and what amounted to a head shop where you could buy glow-in-the-dark posters, bongs, and whatever else the hippies began marketing after they went commercial in the '70s... I had never visited the optometrist shop. The entrance had a 1930s look that I liked—art deco molded-tin awning over the doorway, and Bakelite tiles on the foyer walls. It looked like the kind of business that would be owned by an elderly optometrist who had serviced families for generations and personally ground lenses in his back room. I liked the look of the shop, but I drove right past it on my way to Sight City!!! where you could buy Two Pair for the Price of One!!! according to the billboards plastered all over Denver blocking every decent view of the Rocky Mountains.”
― Gary Reilly, The Asphalt Warrior

“I hate it when I get mad at myself because it's impossible to turn on my heel and walk away in a huff and refuse to speak to me again. I've tried it plenty of times, believe me.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“Writers, even unpublished writers, have a tendency not to notice what’s going on around them when they are the center of attention.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I didn't offer to help him carry any of his stuff. That's the unwritten code between cabbies and movers.... It's his punishment for tricking the cab driver into playing Mayflower, because he knows he's not going to give you a tip, and so do you.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“I'll take my alkaloid diuretics wherever I can get them. If there isn't a 7-11 in the vicinity, a Winchell's donut shop is Plan B. The joe at both places is almost indistinguishable, like the difference between Johnny Walker and Cutty Sark, but only cab drivers and hobos draw such fine distinctions.”
― Gary Reilly, The Asphalt Warrior

“It’s a funny thing about writing. You get so balled up in a story idea that you lose your perspective and forget that human being might read your words someday.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I don't like people to know I think things.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“For the past few weeks I have been laboring under the assumption that if people thought I was dead, they would stop annoying me and leave me alone.”

I didn't respond right away. I examined his statement from every angle, and while I admired the logic, the cockeyed optimism left me cold.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“I was in the land of fakes and frauds and phonies—I felt like saying “Howdy cousin,” to everybody who walked by.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I guided my heap into the heart of Capitol Hill wondering for the first time in fourteen years what I could do to get money besides drive cabs or rob banks. Both occupations had their pros and cons. For instance, bank robbery isn't quite as dangerous as cab driving, but it pays better.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“You must be compelled by an inner force to read books, listen to music, and view films which serve only to send you spiraling deeper into the bottomless pit of frustration.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“They paid people to write books!!! Until that moment I had a vague idea that books were produced in factories, like tires, or else they grew on trees, like money.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“Work/Loaf Ratio”...I have spent fourteen years perfecting... I won't bore you with a long-winded explanation of the “W/LR” save to say that it is an algebraic formula of such complex numeric subtlety that it can be understood only by mathematicians and hobos.”
― Gary Reilly, The Heart of Darkness Club

“I don’t know why anybody does anything in the winter. I always say, if you want to do something, move to Phoenix.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I was driving pretty much the way everyone drives in LA, like elephants dancing on each others’ backs at a circus.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“When I was in college I had a wisdom tooth pulled, and I was given a prescription for a bottle of narcotic pills that surely have reached the top of the DEA's hit-list by now. I don't remember the name of the pills, nor do I remember how I ended up in Tijuana. It's probably a long story.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“Money can't buy happiness—but it can buy beer.”
― Gary Reilly, The Asphalt Warrior

“...like I always say, “Now is as good a time as any to start not doing things.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I hate competition. It’s one of the seven warning signs of work. I’ve spent most of my life trying to figure out ways to make money without working. I don’t know what I could do to get money besides driving a cab, except robbing banks. Both occupations have their pros and cons. For instance, bank robbery isn’t quite as dangerous as cab driving, but it pays better.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood

“I wandered the sidewalk watching all the street performers doing their juggling acts, playing their musical instruments, busting their asses to avoid work. I liked that. But I wanted to tell them there were easier ways to avoid work, like cab driving.”
― Gary Reilly, Ticket To Hollywood