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"I was pretty dead set against ever writing an academic novel. It's always been my view that there are already more than enough academic novels and that most of them aren't any good. Most of them are self-conscious and bitter, the work of people who want to settle grudges."
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"With Fellini, the fear dropped out of my work because it was such a happy experience... hanging out with Fellini, having pasta on the set with Fellini, and going out with Fellini!"
Author Name
Personal Development
"I really do hope that the Millennium Summit gives new impetus to the work of the United Nations."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The rest of my work, besides sketching and keeping a diary, which was the most troublesome of all, consisted in making geological and zoological collections."
Author Name
Personal Development
"If you can find your perfect job, create one."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Salary is the currency that is gotten from mortgaging your life and time."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Anytime we can take narcotics off the street it is significant because it takes them out of the hands of children. It certainly is not going to stop the drug problem, we have to work very, very hard."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Give a typical employee a million, and, he is most likely to use the money to print his CV on fancier paper."
Author Name
Personal Development
"For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Assuming roles is something that simply won't work for me, since I don't have a style. None at all."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you."
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"It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I can."
Books
"When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises."
Will
"Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions."
Science
"By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets."
People
"Some authors have a very hard time understanding that in order to be faithful to the spirit of the book, it's almost always impossible to remain faithful to the text. You have to make changes."
Time
"When I start getting close to the end of a novel, something registers in the back of my mind for the next novel, so that I usually don't write, or take notes. And I certainly don't begin. I just allow things to percolate for a while."
Preparation
"I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me."
Comedy
"I was pretty dead set against ever writing an academic novel. It's always been my view that there are already more than enough academic novels and that most of them aren't any good. Most of them are self-conscious and bitter, the work of people who want to settle grudges."
Work
"I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid."
Nature
"You can be interested in a Jane Smiley novel whether or not anyone says a word. She enters into her characters' thoughts with great understanding and depth."
Thought
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