- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
You Quotes
Quotes that speak straight to you.
This collection gathers quotes framed around 'you' - from candid reflections on body image pressures passed down in families to observations about how humor can mask real vulnerability. Many touch on how what you know about yourself differs from how others perceive you.
- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Nov 07, 2020
Because characters are your creations, you are the one who ultimately gets to decide their fate.
- Fight
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that being raised the way I was, where everything was so uncompromising, where, you know, we're prepared to fight to the death for the soil that you believed belonged to you - that kind of extreme engagement is very difficult to flush out of your system - or your belief system, anyway.
- Big Difference
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think there's a big difference between loving someone out of duty and dependency and loving someone because you really are able to sort of grow and be whole in the context of that relationship.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think for writers, I think it's really important to court eviction from your tribe: to expose things and to wake people up. And so I think that that can feel like a violation to the people you love the most.
- Being
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- Nov 07, 2020
Childhood is just this amazing place, and in my books, I was trying to express my concern about childhood being eroded. You have kids' TV programs being interrupted by terrorist attacks, and kids are exposed to so much these days.
- Matter
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- Nov 07, 2020
That's the advantage of being a writer: No matter what happens, as long as you survive it, it goes into the work.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
I have never had other kids in the house... I had a huge collection of marbles, and they all had names, which I think concerned my parents. I used to go and sweep outside and talk to myself, and my mum's friends would be over and say, 'Do you realise she is talking to herself?'
- Hard Work
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- Nov 07, 2020
Everyone says marriage is hard work, but they don't tell you that actually being yourself and respecting yourself is hard work.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
You can have an intense connection to someone without being a good, lifelong mate for him. Love is complicated and difficult that way.
- Moment
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- Nov 07, 2020
The only process that comes close to the process of writing a whole book, in my experience, is childbirth. There is this moment when you think you can't possibly labour for another moment, and that, paradoxically, is when you have to push hardest.
- Ambition
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- Nov 07, 2020
In the West, it was believed that attitude and ambition saved you. In Africa, we had learned that no one was immune to capricious tragedy.
- Discipline
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- Nov 07, 2020
Retaining culture takes effort and persistence and discipline. It's a commitment, not a flag. You can't just pull it out and wave it about when it's convenient.
- Imagination
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- Nov 07, 2020
Imagination and invention go hand in hand. Remember how lack of resources was never a problem in childhood games? Shift a few pieces of furniture around the living room, and you have yourself a fort.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't know if it's just my age or the climate or the high altitude or some of those old-cowboy values rubbing off on me, but I've grown slightly mellower living in Wyoming. I think if you ride into the West on a high horse, you pretty soon end up in a pile of manure.
- Day
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- Nov 07, 2020
There is a myth that writers get to choose their stories. You don't get to choose your story any more than you get to choose your children. You can make the decision to write, but beyond that, at the end of the day, it's going to come out how it's going to come out.
- City
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- Nov 07, 2020