Phil Klay Quotes
Though I continue to tell stories about Iraq, I sometimes fear this makes me a fraud. I feel guilty about the sorrow I feel because I know it is manufactured, and I feel guilty about the sorrow I do not feel because it is owed, it is the barest beginnings of what is owed to the fallen.
Quotes to Explore
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I don't try to sugarcoat things, but I also think my books make positive statements about the people and values in small-town America.
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Nobody can teach what is inside a person; it has to be discovered for oneself and a way must be found to express it.
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A lot of authors, judging by their list, will put anything out that they finish... That's the worst model I've heard of in my life. It's just idiotic. Why wouldn't you just wait for the good ones?
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My biggest project right now is trying to be a really great mom and learning how to balance family and career. I'm just trying to spend as much time with my family as I can.
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When I go out and I'm presenting the best side of myself, I want to look different from everyone, but I don't want it to look like I'm wearing a costume.
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I always like to sing along to some depressing, angry Morrissey.
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Playing evil is just not interesting. I don't think anyone who does evil stuff thinks they're doing evil stuff. That's the scary part.
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I like the English. They have the most rigid code of immorality in the world.
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The reason that last-ditch political maneuvering has become business as usual in Washington is that the actors involved are drunk on blame and are convinced that the voting public is, too. They count on outrage, thereby spreading numbness. They cherish the prospect of partisan fury, thereby inspiring nonpartisan disgust.
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The reactions of organic magnesium compounds are of two kinds - reactions of substitution and reactions of addition.
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My dream job was to work in an ice cream shop. Two weeks and five pounds later, I realized it wasn't for me. For many years, I had planned to be a corporate lawyer. As luck would have it, other than a summer internship, I didn't end up doing that either.
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People may get tired of hearing from me, but I don't think I'll ever run out of things that I want to write about.
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When I talk to Chicagoans who live in our most violence-prone neighborhoods, they do not hate the police. In fact, they tell me they want more cops and fewer gangs. They do not want more officers in cars just driving through their communities. They want officers on the beat in their neighborhoods.
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As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.
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I think there's always room for more innovation and new things.
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Living with very limited expectations is a much more immediate way of living. You really do just make the best of everything you have. I guess kids have that ability; they wait in joyful anticipation of something rather than that sense of entitlement.
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When my dad, Tommy Tucker Kelly, was about six, he started out with his dad on 'The Black and White Minstrel' Shows.
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I contend, most seriously, that there is a real need for a good, thick, complete-as-possible dictionary of 'What People Used to Call Things.'
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Privacy is important to me. But it's not just about sticking two fingers up and saying I don't want anyone to know my business. It's an artistic choice. I think that for any actor to convince their audience that they have completely inhabited a character requires a certain level of anonymity.
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All of my main characters have been under 30.
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I had relatives who would go to Japan and bring back random stuff they bought at the airport or whatever - 'Ultraman' and 'Speed Racer,' stuff like that.
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There is a lot of talk in publishing these days that we need to become more like the Internet: We need to make books for short attention spans with bells and whistles - books, in short, that are as much like 'Angry Birds' as possible. But I think that's a terrible idea.
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I'm always intrigued by people that listen to my music, I just naturally want to get to know people who listen to my music because people who end up having such an attachment with my stuff, I wonder why they have such a connection to something that's so personal to me in the first place.
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Though I continue to tell stories about Iraq, I sometimes fear this makes me a fraud. I feel guilty about the sorrow I feel because I know it is manufactured, and I feel guilty about the sorrow I do not feel because it is owed, it is the barest beginnings of what is owed to the fallen.
