David Maraniss Quotes
I discovered in writing the biography of Bill Clinton that it is actually easier to write a biography of someone who is dead. Although you can't interview them, you have a fuller perspective on their whole life after they're gone and people are more willing to talk about them.
Quotes to Explore
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Politicians are so... detested; they don't actually walk amongst people now.
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We have to surmount the difficulties that face us and work steadfastly for the happiness and prosperity of our country.
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We as children went up the mountain to find feed for livestock, like goats, cows and horses, and because in the winter time we would light the fire in the house, we would climb the mountain to collect firewood as well. Because of that, I suppose I became used to climbing mountains.
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I like the discipline of well-cut, impeccable clothes. I think it's a very healthy discipline.
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Failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.
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No, I didn't work it out upside down, I never turned it around.
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As a kid at school, I had a lot of really good teachers and I had a lot of really bad teachers, and I just know how much of an impact those can have on a young child. To be one of the good teachers - I want to have that kind of impact.
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I learned that when you stand up for what you believe in, you'll get a lot of support. But there are always going to be negative things said about you.
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Our goal is to build this up as a knowledge base that anyone can look at. We're not just interested in people answering their friends' one-off questions.
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Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
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How do you create chemistry? If only I knew that! Some people say it's a natural thing that you have with someone, and maybe it is to do with that, but I think you can work on it.
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We see book-burning as a crime against humanity: it's intolerable because books represent a kind of freedom to us.
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Nobody knows 100% what affects the human body, mind or spirit.
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I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level.
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When a guy tells me I'm cute, it's not something desirable. Cute is more like what you want your pet to be.
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In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75.
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Both my parents had heart problems: my mother had type 2 diabetes, and my father had a stroke.
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There really are three types of 'religious' movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.
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I read five books on the Constitution. My favorite was 'Plain, Honest Men' by Richard Beeman. I went on a science jag in the same way. I kept getting in arguments about evolution and being bested. So I read Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of the Species,' a fantastic book that is not that difficult.
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I'm playing with Bonnie Raitt. I don't have to sing it. I just have to play it. That's cool.
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What's wrong with hip-hop [is that] it became so one-dimensional; it became like a businessman thing. It's run out of creativity. It went so far off about making money that now everyone can do it.
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Nolan has the strangest affect on people. You know, I think there's something very sad and little boy about him, but at the same time the way he goes about everything is so awkward and obnoxious. He can never say the right thing, you know? And I think if he just didn't try so hard and calmed down, people might actually like him a bit more!
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And what always struck me about that war period was how even Churchill had to talk socialism to keep up people's morale.
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I discovered in writing the biography of Bill Clinton that it is actually easier to write a biography of someone who is dead. Although you can't interview them, you have a fuller perspective on their whole life after they're gone and people are more willing to talk about them.
