Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby, Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was one of America's most acclaimed postwar writers. His work ranks as some of the most powerful literature written by an American author in the twentieth century.{{ref|nyt}} His best known work, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) is recognized today as a classic.

Quotes

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• "Sometimes we have the absolute certainty that there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel." - Hubert Selby, Jr.
• "His art is his ability to humanize the seemingly inhuman, and by extension to humanize the reader." - Richard Price, novelist.
• "To understand Selby's work is to understand the anguish of America" - New York Times.
• " was a seminal piece of work. It broke so many traditions. . one of the last of that generation, of some of the greatest writers in this country." - Jim Ragan, head of the master's of professional writing program at the USC.
• " had the extraordinary capability of using language that is not normally thought of as a literary language, to make literature out of it." - Gilbert Sorrentino, novelist and childhood friend.
• " always left one line partially unfinished at night to have a place to start the next morning." - Suzanne Selby, wife.
• "What Moby Dick was to Melville's century, Last Exit to Brooklyn is to ours, and between the two, Selby's is the better book. If that be called heresy, know that it be called so only by those of the same dead mind as they who allowed Melville to die unknown. " - Nick Tosches
• "When college came around I wasn't very prepared. I hit the library and tried to learn. But Selby fucked everything up. From sentence one I was done, and so were my finals." - Darren Aronofsky, director of Requem for a Dream film release.
• "Being an artist doesn't take much, just everything you got. Which means, of course, that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it's no big deal. They are one in the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it, I transcend all this meaningless gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission." - Hubert Selby, Jr.