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Quotes by Novelist
"I think most writers feel like they're on the outside looking in much of the time. All of us feel, to a certain extent, alienated from the stuff going on around us."
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"Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered."
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"We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist."
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"For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store."
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"If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself."
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"The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it."
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"Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched."
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"The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin."
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"But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?""It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!...I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"
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"I read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is."
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"A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind."
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"The fools ran after me and I ran after the whores, foolish though I realized such a proceeding to be."
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"I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about."
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"Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation."
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"A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard."
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"How do you defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized."
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"The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it."
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"Girls get screwed.Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things.The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feelcheap for doingexactly what they beg for.The way they get to play you, all the while claiming they love you and making you believe it's true.The way it's okay to gift their heart one day, a backhand the next, to move on to the apricotwhen the peach blushes and bruises.These things make me believe God's a man after all."
51
"If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man."
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"And as for Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality."
51
"I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible."
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"Orito banishes all thoughts of Jacob de Zoet, and recalls Jacob de Zoet."
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"Probably in a parallel universe not far from here, I'm working for Nintendo."
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"How old are you?""Ten," answered Tangle."You don't look like it," said the lady."How old are you, please?" returned Tangle."Thousands of years old," answered the lady."You don't look like it," said Tangle."Don't I? I think I do. Don't you see how beautiful I am!"
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"The old always think the world is getting worse; it is for the young, equipped with historical facts, to point out that, compared with 1509, or even 1939, life in 2009 is sweet as honey."
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