David Quammen Quotes
Most Americans know nothing about the African forest, and it seems to them a very scary, spooky dangerous place. I've spent a lot of time in the forests of central Africa. I know they're beautiful places that contain a lot of different kinds of creatures, including some that carry Ebola.
Quotes to Explore
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I've read quite a few readers' reviews of my book on Amazon, saying, 'Ah, he criticises the free market, he advocates central planning.' I don't do that for a minute! But this is our black and white, dichotomous way of thinking - which has really been harmful.
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I wear the Jewish star, but I'm not - I haven't converted to Judaism, and I'm not - I'm not - I'm not Jewish in the conventional sense because the Kaballah is a belief system that predates religion and predates Judaism as an organized religion.
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I am obsessed with the Great Depression and with former showgirls - and the Victorians - the idea of wistful, dark romance.
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I work eight hours a day, but I'm not writing all that time. I'm thinking, editing, looking something up. Thinking is what I do a lot of.
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My phone blows up all the time. I had to change my number.
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We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.
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I would love to have some sort of 'Back To The Future' Delorean time machine travel device so I could go back to 1981 to see that very first Jackson 5 concert I went to, back when I was a kid.
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In our Western culture, although death has come out of the closet, it is still not openly experienced or discussed. Allowing dying to be so intensely present enriches both the preciousness of each moment and our detachment from it.
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Lyndon Johnson was a profoundly insecure man who feared dissent and craved reassurance. In 1964 and 1965, Johnson's principal goals were to win the presidency in his own right and to pass his Great Society legislation through Congress.
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When I read the 'Country Strong' script, I thought, 'Can't they just hand-double it? Can't I just do the rest of the movie and not have to do the performing?' It took me six months to learn to sing and play guitar at the same time.
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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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I've been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.
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I'm originally from southern California, so I, like, say 'like', like, a lot. I've been trying to scrub any traces of Valley Girl from my speech since I moved to New York, but it's, like, totally way harder than anyone thinks, you know?
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I procrastinate all morning. That's when I get my office work done and answer e-mails and see what's on the Internet and do laundry.
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My birthday is Feb. 11, and I'm both excited and not excited by it. You'll never be 15 again, and you really, really need to savor every day like it's your last.
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To anybody who says to me, 'I'm in character,' I say, 'You should be in an asylum.' If you don't know that you're pretending, then you should really seek medical help. I don't have patience for that stuff.
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Sometimes you have to be okay with what you are to the world, where you are in the world, and make the most of it.
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Over a three year period, I gave away half of what I had. To be honest, my hands shook as I signed it away. I knew I was taking myself out of the race to be the richest man in the world.
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It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
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I know what to do and I go and execute.
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A lot of my friends growing up were hunters, but I spent all my time on the ice hurting actual humans playing hockey. I never had the chance to run through the woods and shoot at a moose or deer. I was shooting pucks at goaltender's heads.
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It's hard to imagine what the Bronte sisters' lives would've been like had they been men. Different things would've been expected of them, and maybe they wouldn't have ended up writing because they would've been packed off to do something else.
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Mike Judge is my Jonathan Swift, and I say that because I don't know any other satirists. But the problem with satire is that it's so easily misinterpreted.
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Most Americans know nothing about the African forest, and it seems to them a very scary, spooky dangerous place. I've spent a lot of time in the forests of central Africa. I know they're beautiful places that contain a lot of different kinds of creatures, including some that carry Ebola.
