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Quotes by Writer
"Maybe it could be depression, like you get. I can understand now how you suffer when you're depressed; I always thought you liked it and I thought you could have snapped yourself out any time, if not alone, then by means of the mood organ. But when you get that depressed you don't care. Apathy, because you've lost a sense of worth."
48
"The true knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge,-not the first thought that comes, so the true passion is disciplined and tested passion,-not the first passion that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined."
48
"Muhammad Ali is a combination of personality and athlete who is probably better known around the world than any other. He became a great hero."
48
"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction."
48
"What I like least is dealing with publishers who simply don't want collaborations regardless of their merit."
48
"Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. Please be careful, Mr.Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off."
48
"After the spiritual powers, there is no thing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality. The spirit of nationality in Ireland will persist even though the mightiest of material powers be its neighbor."
48
"Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance. Tell yourself enough vivid stories about the worst possible outcome of your work and you'll soon come to believe them. Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn't make you better."
48
"The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it."
48
"You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, and your whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing."
48
"Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists."
48
"We have to care what someone thinks of us. We are incapable of seeing ourselves [sometimes]."
48
"Please, please, help me grow to be like them, the ones'll soon be here, who never grow old, can't die, that's what they say, can't die, no matter what, or maybe they died a long time ago but Cecy calls, and Mother and Father call, and Grandmere who only whispers, and now they're coming and I'm nothing, not like them who pass through walls and live in trees or live underneath until seventeen-year rains flood them up and out, and the ones who run in packs, let me be the one! If they live forever, why not me?"
48
"For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination."
48
"The statesman received us with that old-fashioned courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble."
48
"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to."
48
"We define masculinity in very narrow way. Masculinity is hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak-- a hard man."
48
"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."
48
"Jealousy is the tie that binds, and binds, and binds."
48
"There are plenty of reasons not to put up with the world as it is."
48
"I do not sing nor play, but I adore music, particularly Chopin. I like him because I cannot understand him."
48
"The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers."
48
"Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love."
48
"You have to keep trying whether you feel like you can or not. Your future will thank you."
48
"Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true."
48
"This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job."
48
"People are not in a good mood when any politician's face appears on television."
48
"One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, gets shuffled about, and comes out in new and interesting ways."
48
"I couldn't have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living at Clapham."
48
"There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well."
48
"Few in this world are ever simply nasty; those who hurt us are themselves in pain. The appropriate response is hence never cynicism nor aggression but, at the rare moments one can manage it, always love."
48
"Muddle is the extra unknown personality in any committee."
48
"Why do dachshunds wear their ears inside out?"
48
"Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles, Victim of your folly."
48
"The Mother Thing makes our world."
48
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