Donald Ray Pollock Quotes

I would try to write my own story about some East Coast suburbanite having an affair or something like that. So I did that for maybe two years or so, and it just wasn't working for me at all.

Donald Ray Pollock

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Quotes to Explore

• I have a lot of breast cancer history on my mother's side of the family.

  

  Wanda Sykes
  • Family
  • History
  • Mother

• I just realized quite early on that I'm not going to be the type who can write a novel every two years. I think you need to feel an urgency about the act. Otherwise, when you read it, you feel no urgency, either. So I don't write unless I really feel I need to, and that's a luxury.

  

  Zadie Smith
  • Think
  • Write
  • Luxury

• I was lucky. My father raced bikes. He gave me the passion very early. I had my first bike when I was three or four years old.

  

  Valentino Rossi
  • Father
  • Passion
  • Bike

• The country is stronger than the result of any one election. But we shouldn't forget that these are just ordinary people. I wish Americans would look at them level, not down or up - just level. It doesn't take some special dimension to be president.

  

  Jack Germond
  • People
  • Up
  • Country

• Zimbabweans are severely malnourished, and deaths from starvation occur even in the cities. The country has not yet suffered nationwide famine only because international donors have stepped in.

  

  Samantha Power
  • Country
  • Starvation
  • Famine

• What I look for in any book is an argument, based on evidence, that changes the way I think about something important.

  

  Barry Schwartz
  • Important
  • Book
  • Changes

• The nice thing is that, at least in Los Angeles, I'm known as a character actor and I do auditions for other things besides just cartoon shows.

  

  Dan Castellaneta
  • Character
  • Nice
  • Los Angeles

• As far as acting in films, there is not much out there that is very interesting to do. The ones that are interesting to me are independent films and they have trouble raising money. With people putting their money into blockbusters, there is not much left for the independents.

  

  Karen Allen
  • People
  • Money
  • Interesting

• We're not doing outrageous fashion; I make sports clothes that are relatively conservative, clothes that everyone wears.

  

  Calvin Klein
  • Fashion
  • Sports
  • Clothes

• Music is like the genius of humankind, universal... People who have never really taken the time to get into music, their lives are a lot smaller. Kids deserve the richness and dimension of it in their lives.

  

  Flea Jane's Addiction
  • People
  • Time
  • Music

• People always ask why I stay in the online space versus going to TV or film, like most people would do, and the answer is that there's opportunity for innovation online - not only innovation in storytelling, but also innovation in how you interact with your audience and that is very fulfilling to me personally.

  

  Felicia Day
  • People
  • Why
  • Opportunity

• The shift to a cleaner energy economy wont happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Energy
  • Change
  • Choices

• That's the great thing about incubating something on the web: you have the potential to go to other platforms. Every single platform has a different audience that you find.

  

  Felicia Day
  • Great
  • Different
  • Single

• Fame is easy to acquire; impact is much more difficult.

  

  Hans Rosling
  • Easy
  • Fame
  • Impact

• I never have celebrity crushes.

  

  Samantha Barks
  • Never
  • Celebrity
  • Crushes

• I like to think that Junie B. looks at the world - and this isn't a negative comment on her - from the lowest common denominator. It's not all gray to her; it's all black and white.

  

  Barbara Park
  • World
  • Black
  • Black-and-white

• North Korea's whole idea is to create a crisis to solve a crisis. They're so poor and they're so desperate that they realize that this bombastic rhetoric can drive the South Korean stock market down and get the U.S. in a tizzy. And it's a game they've been playing for many, many years.

  

  Barbara Demick
  • Game
  • Down
  • Stock

• I think both of my parents are unique in the way they don't live their lives as celebrities. They're both artists, first and foremost. My mom lives a very private life. So does my father. You don't really see them in the tabloids or anything like that. I think that's definitely a decision you can make.

  

  Zoe Kravitz
  • Life
  • Live
  • Father

• Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like. There's nothing that says I can't write a page of full stops. There is no 'should' involved, although you wouldn't know that from literary reviews and critics.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • Life
  • Freedom
  • Page

• Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Value
  • Gold
  • Diamonds

• Reaching in, he wrapped the exposed wires around his fingers and ripped them out. The locks released, letting the door fall open a crack.'That’s what we call a Luddite hack.'

  

  Pat Cadigan
  • Fall
  • Door

• I was never supposed to be a businessman. I was going to change the world. I was going to go back to Latin America and work on agrarian reform and equalize the differences between rich and poor.

  

  Jorge M. Perez
  • World
  • Work
  • America

• When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a s**t you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is and there is no use crying over spilt milk.

  

  Kingsley Amis
  • Life
  • Family
  • Job

• I would try to write my own story about some East Coast suburbanite having an affair or something like that. So I did that for maybe two years or so, and it just wasn't working for me at all.

  

  Donald Ray Pollock