S. Jay Olshansky Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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What I felt was, if you spend your life just writing fiction, you are going to falsify your material. And the fictional form was going to force you to do things with the material, to dramatize it in a certain way. I thought nonfiction gave one a chance to explore the world, the other world, the world that one didn't know fully.
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I happen to miss the Constitution; I thought it was a good document.
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I never feel like there's any one point to the film, to anything, to any of the movies I've made.
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When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
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In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions – one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.
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I try and sit on the fence because as soon as you voice any kind of opinion, people begin to think you're an idiot.
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No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.
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My boys asked me to write beautiful letters for their ex-girls so they could get them back. I thought, 'I should be writing songs for myself.'
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Events tend to recur in cycles.
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I've never been tempted to do these hideous furniture shoes.
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'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.
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I'm looking to expand my portfolio while I'm on top and while I'm young.
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Peter Wagner, my son, just won the Bel-Air Junior Club Championship. Parred the last three holes. One-putts, up and down. Us Wagners don't hit greens. We chip and putt.
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My guilty pleasure is I like to watch a lot of HGTV. I really like watching design shows about houses, like extreme homes. Like buying a bridge and turning it into a house or something like that. I really am interested in home design or something like that... architecture.
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Before this distinguished assembly and the world, the bells today proclaim the joyous tidings of the completion of this quietly soaring tower.
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I like movies where you feel like it was actually thought through.
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There's this tendency to be like, 'Where's the negative stuff? How valid is the criticism?' But honestly, what people think of me is none of my business. If I live on the Internet looking for public approval, I'm going to be miserable.
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Investing in people is the single most important thing in the knowledge economy. Traditionally, wealth was defined by land and natural resources. Today the most important resources is between our ears.
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I don't play racing games, unless it's 'Mario Kart.
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"As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."
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By March '87 we're down to seven thousand, by the end of the year we're down to twelve hundred. The whole bottom just fell out of the market. It was bad for me because I was in Australia at the time.
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I have been luckier than anyone I know or even heard of. I had a very happy childhood, a good education, I enjoyed working as a teacher, journalist and author. I have loved a wonderful man for over 33 years, and I believe he loves me, too.
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Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure.
