Tom Wolfe

American Journalist
Tom Wolfe was an American author and journalist known for his satirical writings on the counterculture of the 1960s and the lifestyles of the elites in New York City. He was a pioneer of the 'New Journalism' style and wrote bestsellers like 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' and 'The Bonfire of the Vanities'.

About Tom Wolfe

Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018) was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe’s work was satirical and centred on the counterculture of the 1960s and issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.

Wolfe began his career as a regional newspaper reporter in the 1950s, achieving national prominence in the 1960s following the publication of such best-selling books as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (an account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters) and two collections of articles and essays, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. In 1979, he published the influential book The Right Stuff about the Mercury Seven astronauts, which was made into a 1983 film of the same name directed by Philip Kaufman.

His first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, published in 1987, was met with critical acclaim and also became a commercial success. Its adaptation as a motion picture of the same name, directed by Brian De Palma, was a critical and commercial failure.

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Frequently asked questions about Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with the ‘New Journalism’ style of writing, which incorporated literary techniques into journalism. He was known for his satirical writings on the counterculture of the 1960s and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites in New York City.

The ‘New Journalism’ style that Tom Wolfe pioneered was a form of news writing and journalism that incorporated literary techniques, such as narrative, dialogue, and descriptive language, into traditional news reporting.

Some of Tom Wolfe’s most famous works include ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’, an account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as well as the best-selling novel ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’.

Much of Tom Wolfe’s work was satirical and focused on the counterculture of the 1960s, as well as issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.

Tom Wolfe’s pioneering of the ‘New Journalism’ style, which incorporated literary techniques into news writing, had a significant influence on the field of journalism and the way stories were told.

The film adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s novel ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’, directed by Brian De Palma, was a critical and commercial failure, despite the book’s success.

In 1979, Tom Wolfe published the influential book ‘The Right Stuff’ about the Mercury Seven astronauts, which was later made into a 1983 film of the same name, directed by Philip Kaufman.

Quotes by Tom Wolfe

A cult is a religion with no political power.

Tom Wolfe

A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.

Tom Wolfe

At the outset, at least, all three groups had something else to recommend them, as well: They were headquartered 3,000 miles away from the East Side of Manhattan.

Tom Wolfe

Frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I can’t see a painting.

Tom Wolfe

If a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested.

Tom Wolfe

It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don’t put psychotics in high places and we’ve got the problem solved.

Tom Wolfe

Love is the ultimate expression of the will to live.

Tom Wolfe

On Wall Street he and a few others – how many? three hundred, four hundred, five hundred? had become precisely that… Masters of the Universe.

Tom Wolfe

Radical Chic, after all, is only radical in Style; in its heart it is part of Society and its traditions.

Tom Wolfe

The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it’s an example of freedom from religion.

Tom Wolfe

The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.

Tom Wolfe

The surest cure for vanity is loneliness.

Tom Wolfe

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

Tom Wolfe

There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit.

Tom Wolfe

There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous – and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.

Tom Wolfe

There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves.

Tom Wolfe

This is the artist, then, life’s hungry man, the glutton of eternity, beauty’s miser, glory’s slave.

Tom Wolfe

We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

Tom Wolfe

We are now in the Me Decade – seeing the upward roll of the third great religious wave in American history.

Tom Wolfe