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"Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem."
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Exlpore more Talent quotes
"You need to find your gift, something you are doing better than others."
"We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents."
"That boy is talented. You don't develop those gifts in houses or in schools."
"We don't choose our talents, but we needn't hide them in a napkin because they are not just what we want."
"Talent silences your competition, genius deafens them."
"They would come down in Mississippi, they hired me as a talent scout. And I would go all over Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and find out different artists for them."
"Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge."
Explore more quotes by Jonathan Coe
"The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me."
"It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely."
"As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?"
"But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels."
"I became quite taken over by Johnson's personality at some points while writing the biography, and since I went straight on to The Closed Circle afterwards, I did sometimes feel I could hear him whispering in my ear while I was working on it."
"The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it."
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