James Tate Quotes
I love my funny poems, but I'd rather break your heart. And if I can do both in the same poem, that's the best.James Tate
Quotes to Explore
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I'm profoundly lucky. I really like it. I really like my work. I've liked it since I was 5 years old.
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I have spent a lot of time listening to people who are serving life sentences and getting to know them and the circumstances of their lives. I have never met anyone serving a long prison sentence who had anything close to what I could call a childhood; instead, the upbringings always - always - involve extreme situations of poverty and abuse.
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The film business was a great lesson in business combat and what it takes to survive.
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My opinion, my conviction, gains immensely in strength and sureness the minute a second mind as adopted it.
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When I won the belt, it was kind of a precedent... The only Canadian to have ever held it.
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I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain. None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable.
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I love the simplicity and freedom of running. A pair of shoes, and you are all set to explore new trails.
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The first time that I ever saw Babe Ruth was in the Boston Red Sox clubhouse.
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Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish: I confess, that to my misfortune, it is soft.
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YouTube has become more mature, both as a platform and as a community. So much content has been added in almost every conceivable category that there are no more free passes on just getting there first. I think there are greater expectations for audience participation, the kind of participation that makes a real impact in a show's community.
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The men and women who occupied the east coast of North America between 1607 and 1800 have been more closely scrutinized than any other collection of people in American history.
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Too many trees are killed to print the words of people who may not have all that much to say, and authors and journalists are equally culpable in this regard.
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While it's easy for South Sudan to feel distant, the situation is all too real for the South Sudanese mothers choosing which child gets to eat tomorrow. This is a time when we must look outward together and declare that humanity has no borders - no one deserves to suffer like this, especially in a world of such abundance.
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Now it is human nature to want to eat to ones fill when hungry, to want to warm up when cold, to want to rest when tired. These all are a part of people's emotional nature.
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Clowning is a trick to get love close. I can hug 99 percent of people in the first second of contact if I'm in my clown character. The clown assumes your humanity. It assumes that, whatever trauma you've had, you can still love yourself.
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A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.
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I was going to college to be a doctor.
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For research, I like to go to the location of the places in the novels. The first thing that I do is involve my senses: I notice the smells; I open the trash cans and look at what people have thrown away.
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As long as God gives me strength to work and try to make things real for my children, I'm going to work for it - even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.
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Good sex is impossible to write about. Lawrence and Updike have given it their all, and the result is still uneasy and unsure. It may be that good sex is something fiction just can't do - like dreams. Most of the sex in my novels is absolutely disastrous. Sex can be funny, but not very sexy.
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My sister wanted a cat for a pet... I wanted a dog, so they bought a cat and taught it to bark.
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The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
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I love my funny poems, but I'd rather break your heart. And if I can do both in the same poem, that's the best.
James Tate
