Life
Phillips was born in Minneapolis and received a BA in history from Harvard (1986–90). After spending two years in Budapest (1990–1992), he then studied jazz saxophone for four semesters at Berklee College of Music (1992–93). In his author biography and several interviews he claims to have been a child actor, a jazz musician, a five-time Jeopardy! champion, a speechwriter, and an advertising copywriter for medical devices, and a "dismally failed entrepreneur." He lived in Budapest from 1990 to 1992 and in Paris from 2001 to 2003, and now lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
Phillips was featured on the July 27, 2007, episode of "This American Life", reading his short story "Wenceslas Square." The story is being produced for film by "This American Life" and Endgame Entertainment, with a script by Christopher Markus and Steven McFeely.
Before becoming a best-selling novelist, Phillips was a five-time champion on Jeopardy! in 1997. In 2005, he competed in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions. He won his opening-round game but lost in the second round.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Phillips
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Moons and years pass by and are gone forever, but a beautiful moment shimmers through life a ray of light.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim—objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man’s skin,—seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)