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Quotes by Novelist
"I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate."
40
"Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity."
40
"These were innocent people, so innocent that they thought poverty a crime that wealth would allow them to forget. --- from the notebooks of Celal Salik."
40
"The only thing that exists is torment, lyricism, and the magnificence of language."
40
"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note."
40
"It's wildly irritating to have invented something as revolutionary as sarcasm, only to have it abused by amateurs."
40
"I rolled myself up into a tight ball of resistance and it was thus that I went through my school years."
40
"I have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line."
40
"But Charlie could imagine, because he was a Beta Male, and imagination was his curse...."
40
"The problems with lies is they start to pile up, one on top of another, until it's hard to find your way out from under the heap."
40
"After a goalless first half, the score at half time is 0-0."
40
"When a culture oppresses women, and all do to one degree or another, it isn't convenient to acknowledge that there are women who like submission in bed or who have fantasies about rape. Masochistic fantasies damage the case for equality, and even when they are seen as the result of a "sick society," the peculiarity of our sexual actions or fantasies is not easily untangled or explained away. The ground from which they spring is simply too muddy. Acts can be controlled, but not desire. Sexual feeling pops up, in spite of our politics."
40
"Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well."
40
"No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection."
40
"Odd that a festival to celebrate the most austere of births should end up being all about conspicuous consumption."
40
"There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly."
40
"Keep your chin up. Eventually, you will meet someone who cares about your opinion. I'm so sorry I'm not her."
40
"I couldn't live a week without a private library - indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess."
40
"The only true source of politeness is consideration."
40
"You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them."
40
"Why can't you place a blessing like that on us?" I asked."It only works on wild animals.""So it would only affect Percy," Annabeth reasoned."Hey!" I protested."
40
"Ceremony is essential to humans: It's a circle that we draw around important events to separate the momentous from the ordinary. And ritual is a sort of magical safety harness that guides us from one stage of our lives into the next, making sure we don't stumble or lose ourselves along the way. Ceremony and ritual march us carefully right through the center of our deepest fears about change."
40
"By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth."
40
"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."
40
"You know, people think you have to be dumb to skip rope for 45 minutes. No, you have to be able to imagine something else. While you're skipping rope, you have to be able to see something else."
40
"All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone, let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down."
40
"Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise."
40
"Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing."
40
"From a book you can learn the theory but it takes practise to learn how to live life."
40
"The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony."
40
"If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient. [25 February 2010]"
40
"I want to escape from myself. For when I do start up and stare myself seedily in the face, as happens to be my case at present, my blankness is inconceivable--indescribable--my misery amazing."
40
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