Quotes by Johnny Rich

This pain is comfort. It is the solace of physicality, like a touch.

Doing nothing was as honourable as any available course of action. Think of Hamlet, think of Job, think of Jesus before Pilate.

Like all fiction, my lies are just my efforts to be truer than the truth.

The characters act for reasons that they can’t control and, as readers, we have to believe in their motivations, their sense of choice and in the reality of their suffering, even though, deep down, we know it’s all just puppetry on the part of the writer.

I stare out at the real world projected on the windows

His suffering was no more real than he was.

Reality, it seems, is not a flat plane, but has as many veils as an onion has skins.

For someone to be perfect, they must be real, however imperfect they are.

It is a matter of mere coincidence that there is often a real individual who corresponds with a celebrity, signifies them.

You need to bridge the gap between reality and freedom. Drugs are the bridge.

I feel underslept but overjoyed. Nothing feels so good as this.

Is the writer cruel that makes his characters suffer only to bring them to triumph or tragedy in the end?

I know everything must be a lie, but I believe it anyway.

Is it murder to kill a man if the man never existed? To the man it is.

Stories are just lies made to look like truth.

Job understood that he was nothing more than God’s invention and so too was his suffering

Suffering is inevitable. It is part of the human condition. It is written in the human script.

I may not be free, but I’m not about to surrender the illusion of choice.

The future is certain. It is just not known.

An unpublished writer should doubt themselves. They should constantly wonder whether what they’re creating has merit. And then, having doubted, they should take up their pen and see if they can’t make it better.