Deborah Tannen Quotes
In my own writing, I avoid 'female' and try to say 'woman' because I feel that the word 'female' has connotations of not just biology but also non-human mammals. The idea of 'female' to me is more appropriate for a female animal.
Quotes to Explore
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Writing about the future and the past is less a way of dramatizing change than of showing, by way of contrast, what abides.
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We're more interested in someone writing a really great answer that's going to be read by thousands or tens of thousands of people over the next few years as it stays on Quora and as it gets distributed on the Internet.
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My favorite animal is a polar bear. They're going extinct, and I really don't want that to happen.
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Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.
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The demand in India is to have a hit, which becomes a promotion for the movie and makes people come to the theater. You have five songs and different promotions based on those. But when I do Western films, the need for originality is greater. Then I become very conscious about the writing.
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I'm a professional songwriter - personal attitudes have nothing to do with writing a song.
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My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.
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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.
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Writing does produce a very unique satisfaction. There are times when I'm writing that it's frustrating or appalling or difficult, but when it goes well, it goes really well, and there is a feeling of rightness, like I'm doing the thing I was meant to do, almost in a mystical way, like I'm at an appropriate angle to the world.
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I'm quite adept at writing two or sometimes even three stories at once. So if I get stuck on one story, I switch the next and let my subconscious work on unraveling any plot problems from another story.
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Whatever's going on with me at the time of writing is going to find its way into the piece. If that doesn't happen, then what the hell am I doing? So if I'm writing 'Inglourious Basterds,' and I'm in love with a girl and we break up, that's going to find its way into the piece.
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Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.
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I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind.
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I'm disregarding all the rules I've seen as people approach writing music. I'm trying to break them.
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What do you think will happen in a forced marriage? With an uneducated man, an animal. What would I say, that I am already married? Why would I say it? I never accepted him as my husband in my heart or mind. How I spent a year and a half with him, only I know. And I only did it because of the child.
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The nice thing about writing at home is that it's almost as though I'm doing it already. I get out of bed thinking of my work, and I don't have to go anywhere to do it.
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I found it really hard for a couple of years to do any writing because all I wanted to do was play the fiddle. From the minute I took it up, I just couldn't put it down.
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I've probably understood men too well. I realise they are predatory by nature, and I have a certain acceptance of the male animal.
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Everyone in the South has no time for reading because they are all too busy writing.
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Storytelling is storytelling. Good stories need compelling characters and interesting conflicts. That's the bottom line no matter what medium you're writing for.
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I'm a light sleeper. I've never been one of those people who can put their head down and suddenly everything disappears. Nighttime is the time I get most scared, anxious or worried. In those darker moments before waking or sleeping is when I feel most, I don't know, I can turn on myself, and my imagination can take me dark places.
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I don't tell everyone my life history because if everyone knows your inside-leg measurement, how can you surprise them?
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In my own writing, I avoid 'female' and try to say 'woman' because I feel that the word 'female' has connotations of not just biology but also non-human mammals. The idea of 'female' to me is more appropriate for a female animal.
