Yusef Komunyakaa Quotes
It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way I had been systematically writing around it.
Quotes to Explore
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Just be patient. Let the game come to you. Don't rush. Be quick, but don't hurry.
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Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.
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Any musician - I would say 99% of musicians - needs some help along the way. Most people, even if they're self-produced, have someone else mix it, or they'll have someone else master the record. Inevitably, it's like somebody else's personality being put into your art.
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When I was growing up, skateboarding was big and basketball was big.
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Last Wednesday, I stupidly dropped my iPhone in the bath, and my life has sort of spiraled almost out of control.
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With film, I have to be a team player; it's a whole different thing. I can't just be a one-man show. I have to learn how to use people to the best of their ability and motivate them to be as passionate about the project as I am.
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In real life, I'm gorgeous, beautiful.
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The Great War was a progressive revelation and disillusionment.
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Actors are greedy. They can never be satisfied. I want praise as well as box office returns.
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Unless you're Gisele, you wake up some days and feel ugly. When that happens, I accept that I'm not perfect and it's OK; I can start over again tomorrow.
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I learned so much in Zimbabwe, in particular about the need for humility in our ambition to extend mental health care in countries where there were very few psychiatrists and where the local culture harboured very different views about mental illness and healing. These experiences have profoundly influenced my thinking.
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My failures have been errors in judgment, not of intent.
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When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?
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I hate a man who always says 'yes' to me. When I say 'no' I like a man who also says 'no.'
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Publishers vet books, and they do a good job keeping out the low quality. But they also miss some good quality.
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I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of the United States.
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Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock.
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In the end, I think part of my problem was that I was a better legislator than I was a politician.
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I like to work from home. I do most of my writing in bed, late at night after everyone has gone to sleep. I need to be alone with my thoughts, and late at night is about the only time that can actually happen.
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Science is defined in various ways, but today it is generally restricted to something which is experimental, which is repeatable, which can be predicted, and which is falsifiable.
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Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all.
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I hear, 'But why do poor people make such bad decisions?' But actually, their decision-making can be far more complex than that of the better-off in many ways. They're not financially illiterate: they're constantly weighing up choices based on the reality of poverty. Somehow the international development community has resisted accepting this.
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It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way I had been systematically writing around it.
