David Shields Quotes
So many of the things I talk about in 'Reality Hunger' seem to be the things that 'The Thing About Life' does - things like risk, contradiction, compression, mixing modes of attack from the memoristic gesture to data-crunching.
Quotes to Explore
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People that are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.
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My emergence has been slow and steady, I would say. I think I've improved every single year. I keep getting better; I keep getting fitter, sharper - and I'm not stopping.
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People turn into fools when they see a movie star and do weird things.
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Should the time come when the county family will be taken away, then the parish will feel for some time like a mouth from which a molar has been drawn - there will be a vacancy that will cause unrest and discomfort.
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In common with all Protestant or Jewish cultures, America was developed on the idea that your word is your bond. Otherwise, the frontier could never have been opened, 'cause it was lawless. A man's word had to mean something.
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I was so opposed to the war in Vietnam that I initially refused President Nixon's urgings for me to go there.
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America is another name for opportunity.
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I've performed Schoenberg's 'Pierrot lunaire' many times.
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My parents were divorced by the time I was even conscious - like, I don't remember them ever being together.
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I have everything that I could possibly want in life, from a gorgeous granddaughter and a wonderful wife, brilliant students, the best job anyone could hope for, and about half of my hair. Not the half I would have kept, but no one consulted me.
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Born in 1936, I experienced the Second World War as a child in the city of Gelsenkirchen-Buer. This area was heavily bombed, but fortunately, all members of my family survived the war and post-war period.
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Thumbs up to the buxom woman. Size zero is boring!
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Richard Lester is a wonderful director, a great comedy director, of course.
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To destroy is always the first step in any creation.
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Starting in the third grade, my dad had me read the 'Denver Post.' I had to discuss two articles with him before dinner, and we would also watch '60 Minutes' together.
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I want medical experiments on animals stopped. They don't do anything, and they don't work.
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It would be curious to discover who it is to whom one writes in a diary. Possibly to some mysterious personification of one's own identity.
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World-building numbs the reader's ability to fulfill their part of the bargain because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done. Above all, world-building is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn't there.
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I wouldn't say I invented tacky, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.
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Bullies - political bullies, economic bullies, and religious bullies - cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with courage, clarity, and conviction. This is never easy. These true believers don't fight fair. Robert's Rules of Order is not one of their holy texts.
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What the men like best are what there's the least sense in, dresses you can't sit down in, that won't stand a lot of action, that hobble you and truss you up and slow you down and fix it so you can't hardly breathe, till finally you're off in one corner, like a bird in a cage, not cluttering up the busy paths in life that men has got to use. That's the styles they really like!
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There's still a tremendous amount of homophobia out there in the world, but it is what it is. I am who I am, and the people in my life are who they are, and they love us, hate us, for whatever reason. It is what it is.
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Taking smart risks can be very gratifying.
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So many of the things I talk about in 'Reality Hunger' seem to be the things that 'The Thing About Life' does - things like risk, contradiction, compression, mixing modes of attack from the memoristic gesture to data-crunching.
