James Fenton Quotes
For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm a compulsive reader of fiction. I fell in love with novels when I was a teenager. My wife Marilyn and I... our initial friendship began because we are both readers. I've gone to sleep almost every night of my life after having read in a novel for 30 or 40 minutes. I'm a great reader of fiction and much less so of non-fiction.
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I love a real-life, movie moment in living color.
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Biggie was a lyrical genius: he was a musical painter with words. As he rapped, you would see the picture come to life as you heard his story. You hear a lot of rappers rap; you hear a lot of singers sing, but you don't see the movie in your head the way you do when you hear Biggie rap.
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Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
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I have a general sense of mission, and I intuitively know when something is influencing that mission. I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Doors keep opening. In the end, it's the best use of my skills. I've finally consented to the idea that I'm an artist.
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I'm here today because I hated everything else.
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I could live very quietly, do advertising to earn money.
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The old movie stars like Bogart, James Cagney, Jimmy Stewart, they weren't this gorgeous, striking six-foot man who's rippled with muscles.
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It's totally mistaken to suppose that an armed escort is going to give a journalist any protection - on the contrary, journalists who turn up surrounded by armed personnel are just turning themselves into targets and in even worse danger.
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The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.
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I have little doubt that gerontologists will eventually find a way to avoid, or more likely, delay, the unpleasantries of extended life.
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I have no ties to my dad. I had no communications with him; it didn't shape who I am or anything like that. I'm actually a product of my mom.
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When I was immobilized by fear, I might have a panic attack. I've had a couple of panic attacks in my life.
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I was not really as good as I should have been.
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As a young woman, I wanted nothing more than to see my name in lights.
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I'm not the biggest Miley Cyrus fan. I'm not the risque type.
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Who co-founded Google? Sergey Brin, a Russian-born Jew whose family fled anti-semitism in the Soviet Union to settle here and who considers himself a refugee.
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My whole thing is feel free to hate me – I so don't care if you hate me, but meet me, and listen to my record, and know me before you hate me.
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Life isn't easy, and leadership is harder still.
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The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document; it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age.
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After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: 'What did I do right?' and 'What would I do differently?
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When you clean them up, when you make movies respectable, you kill them. The wellspring of their art, their greatness, is in not being respectable.
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For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.
