James Boswell Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.
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I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
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I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.
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Dementia is, after all, a symptom of organic brain damage. It is a condition, a disorder of the central nervous system, brought about in my case by a viral assault on brain tissue. When the assault wiped out certain intellectual processes, it also affected emotional processes.
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Only those ignorant of what poetry means will ask the question: what is it good for?
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The historian is a prophet looking backward.
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I think I've got some more big plays left in me.
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No, I didn't work it out upside down, I never turned it around.
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A lot of actors know they want to be actors a little bit earlier on. I didn't even really start studying until I was about 22.
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Skating is tough to pick up when you are a grown up.
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I did my thesis on clowns. It's a powerful thing when you've got this little red nose on. It's a mask, the smallest in the world, but it unveils you. You stand up there and do these exercises that free you, let you play, and see what comes out. What comes out is the truth.
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I play the father in the scene when Will and Tommy go back to Tommy's old apartment. It was a big mistake. I hope not to be in the next movie I direct.
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I learned that five- and-six-year-old kids have already figured out how to be intolerant.
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A man can make himself put down what comes, even if it seems nauseating nonsense; tomorrow some of it may not seem wholly nonsense at all.
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I think, people look at me, and they say, 'You were very aggressive,' I say, 'Yeah,' you know, and I've made a better life for myself, for my son, so I should reflect that with my music now. I shouldn't still be rhyming like that; that would be me lying.
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Pigeon racing is a lousy, greedy, and often unlawful activity. One thing that it is not is kind to birds.
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Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.
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In business, every phase of things counts. Companies that just yell out a low price today to win business aren't going to make money in the long term.
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Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolesence.
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That's the reality of my life - I do normal things and then get to go to film festivals and wear borrowed clothes and turn up at premieres and talk about things I am passionate about. But then you click back to normality and your family and friends.
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I remember being a little kid sitting in the living room with my brother and some friends from around the neighborhood, and I would sit at the piano and as they were running around the room doing different things and being silly, acting out, I would actually play the score for it - the music that went along with it.
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I still feel I need to do things 10 times better than other players. Just to be accepted and to improve myself.
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I have had a lot of your countrymen as co-stars, that's true. I quite like them both. It depends on the person. I don't think English makes the man nor does American, but I like this guy right here [Clive]. He's nice and tall, which means I never have a double chin - there's lots of shots of me looking up, and I'm a swan. Well, we all laugh but it's so true.
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There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
