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John McGahern

"I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television."

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"I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television."

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Donna Grant

"When someone gives you advice, just ask them to give it in writing and they will either keep mum or will run from there."

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Donna Grant

"Go the extra mile to do the undone, but work within your limits, and in doing so also, don't be a coward to question things within your limit that are not all that right, and don't be too arrogant or proud or be filled with excessive knowledge to do things which might though be within your limit, yet out of limit, for you must live and leave nothing, but distinctive and lasting footprints!"

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Donna Grant

"Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old."

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Donna Grant

"Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly."

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Donna Grant

"The first rule when you are in a hole is to ask for a hand out!"

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Donna Grant

"The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery."

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Donna Grant

"O that men's ears should be To counsel deaf but not to flattery!"

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Donna Grant

"The fiend gives the more friendly counsel."

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Donna Grant

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example."

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Donna Grant

"Never let your education interfere with your learning."

Explore more quotes by John McGahern

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John McGahern
"When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody."
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John McGahern
"I think that each of us inhabits a private world that others cannot see. The only difference between the writer and the reader is that the writer is able to dramatise that private world."
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John McGahern
"I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television."
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John McGahern
"But that private world, once it's dramatised, doesn't live again until it finds a reader."
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John McGahern
"Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners."
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John McGahern
"When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not."
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John McGahern
"Yes, though I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing in the church."
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John McGahern
"I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other."
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John McGahern
"I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor."
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John McGahern
"I think it's linked to the realisation that we're not going to live forever and that the way of saying and the language become more important than the story."
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