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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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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My most joy that I have is dancing.
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I never try to be the poster child for the perfect mother/wife... You prioritize, you do the best you can possibly do, and you don't beat yourself up.
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I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.
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I've never necessarily chosen to be a bachelor. I've had girlfriends throughout the last 20 or 30 years. It's just that there were times when I met people that fascinated me and times I didn't.
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I turned vegetarian after 9/11. A friend of mine came back from New York and said that he couldn't stand the smell of burnt flesh. It immediately reminded me of a barbecue.
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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.
