Elizabeth Strout Quotes
I like people a lot, but I am not comfortable in literary New York situations. There is deep anxiety and tension around success here. I don't share problems I'm having about my work, and I think conversations around publishing are boring.
Quotes to Explore
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I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.
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I think the most successful are the most paranoid. The first thing people do when they buy a mansion is they build the biggest wall you could possibly build around it. What happens is, now you become a target. If I go into the hood, I'm at a disadvantage. They could carry guns. I can't. They can hit me in the face. I can't.
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When I sing, people shut up.
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Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
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The entertainment medium of film is particularly tuned to the present imaginations of people at large. A lot of fiction is intensely nostalgic.
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So if we are really concerned about generating more taxes, we ought to be investing in our people, not taking away the kinds of resources that contribute to their ability to become greater taxpayers in this country.
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I'd really like to work with Gwen Stefani and Cee Lo.
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I think in France, for example, we can say whatever we want about the French, but going out and dining is more about the intellectual moment to share with the people you dine with than trying to figure out what the chef did with that little piece of salmon or lobster and all that.
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The thing you notice here after America is how refreshingly ordinary people look because they haven't had their chin wrapped around the back of their ears.
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Citizens who live or work near protest sites or marches have every right to be free of violence from protesters, and they should never be subjected to destruction of property.
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We tend to think of extremes of emotions as registering, for example, you have to cry or laugh or get angry. But for the most part, we find it difficult to read each other most of the time. If you walk through the street, most people are pretty difficult to read. But they're thinking inside.
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Personally, I'm not into reality shows - I can't even name a reality show that I was a really big fan of, altogether as a whole, not just from MTV. Like, if ABC has another reality show, I'm like, 'Oh God, another reality show.' But people love them. 'The Hills', 'Laguna Beach'... those do extremely well. It's just a personal preference.
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Writers, particularly poets, always feel exiled in some way - people who don't exactly feel at home, so they try to find a home in language.
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Music is really something that makes people whole.
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I love mispronunciations. I love when people mispronounce things.
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When you get bullied, you automatically think that you're the reason why you're getting bullied. The reality is, it's about them, not you... I'm all about blocking people. I'm all about saying, 'You know what, I don't need this in my life.'
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I thought maybe I could become like the next Van Gogh. I bought a sunflower and painted it, and it looked like the work of a 6-year-old.
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People don't just love mysteries. They are obsessed with them - especially the kind that are never definitively solved.
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Like every artist that comes out, you want to make a mark; you want to be a household name and you want to be someone that people are going to look back in ten years/fifteen years' time and go, 'I love this guy Olly Murs. He was brilliant back in the day; he was someone I really, really liked.'
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But when I see a story on welfare on television, they only show black people.
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Electoral contests have nothing but polls, which is why people have grown so obsessed with them; we're desperate for an objective rendering of what is happening and what may happen.
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But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.
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Sometimes when a scene is written or directed to be shouted or played incredibly angrily, I always think it's way more terrifying when someone is fuming and talks in a very calm way. I always want people to shout at me if they're angry - it freaks me out that whole thing of, 'I'm not angry I'm just disappointed.'
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I like people a lot, but I am not comfortable in literary New York situations. There is deep anxiety and tension around success here. I don't share problems I'm having about my work, and I think conversations around publishing are boring.
