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Quotes by Writer
"The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple."
9
"If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that."
9
"For us, someone who is willing to step forward and help is much more courageous than someone who is merely fulfilling the role."
Help,
9
"The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all."
9
"Revolution and youth are closely allied. What can a revolution promise to adults? To some it brings disgrace, to others favor. But even that favor is questionable, for it affects only the worse half of life, and in addition to advantages it also entails uncertainty, exhausting activity and upheaval of settled habits.Youth is substantially better off: it is not burdened by guilt, and the revolution can accept young people in toto. The uncertainty of revolutionary times is an advantage for youth, because it is the world of the fathers that is challenged. How exciting to enter into the age of maturity over the shattered ramparts of the adult world!"
9
"The courage of a soldier is heightened by his knowledge of his profession."
9
"How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope."
9
"There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
8
"When you're interviewing someone, even your mother - you have to sort of deal with you have to get some objective space from yourself and the person but you also have to find what's the best way to get the information from that person."
8
"Democracy, as has been said of Christianity, has never really been tried."
8
"Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality."
8
"I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning."
8
"For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that's why I've put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I'm no great runner, by any means. I'm at an ordinary " or perhaps more like mediocre " level. But that's not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be."
8
"Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly."
8
"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."
8
"One should never be sexually involved with anyone one genuinely cares for. A sexual relationship guarantees a loss."
Loss,
8
"We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us."
8
"I know exactly what I'm doing, but I just can't stop. That's my greatest weakness."
8
"A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise."
8
"Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it."
8
"I've had sex with lots of guys, but I think I did it mostly out of fear. I was scared not to have somebody putting his arms around me, so I could never say no. That's all. Nothing good ever came of sex like that. All it does is grind down the meaning of life a piece at a time."
8
"I have a lot more patience for others than I have for myself, and I am much better at bringing out the best in others than in myself. That's just the kind of person I am. I'm the scratchy stuff on the side of the matchbox."
8
"The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same."
8
"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
8
"When I was discharged, I attended the University of Paris and met a beautiful Parisian girl, Janine. We soon married and eventually returned to the States."
8
"Where there is no imagination there is no horror."
8
"For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously."
8
"After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'"
8
"Don't separate 'real' life from 'creative' life."
8
"If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level."
8
"Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil."
8
"It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby."
8
"And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human."
8
"I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is."
8
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