Victor LaValle Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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The more I go on in this career of making albums, writing songs and playing music, the more I think of each album as a movie. I really wanted to make a film, but making a film is much more expensive than making a record.
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When you first hear Mozart's music, your first impression is that it's very alive, but if you peel away the layers, you can hear sorrow and sadness behind it, and that's what I try to be: multi-layered.
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I just enjoy being onstage and relating to the audience.
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Conscientious objection is an intrinsic part of being a soldier.
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I taught English and history, so my education for that really helped prepare me for writing historical fiction.
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I was baptized a Baptist, but I'm just Christian, as far as I'm concerned. I could go in any church, doesn't matter if it's Baptist, Protestant, Episcopal, or Catholic.
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Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
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I try to have a normal life since I have an abnormal job.
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It's such a Bore Being always Poor.
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My own writing has perhaps more of an American flavor than a British one, but that's because the stories I've so far written have needed it. 'Empire State,' 'Seven Wonders' and 'The Age Atomic' are all very place-centric, where the setting itself is almost a character. But there is a universality to story that isn't just limited to science fiction.
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I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.
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Then about 1951 I began writing again, painfully, a novel I called in the beginning A Life Sentence on Earth, but which developed into The Tree of Man.
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I want to learn about a different religion. I grew up Catholic, but my grandfather was Jewish. Knowledge about other religions can help you understand your own better. I think it's kind of hypocritical to believe one thing and don't know about any others.
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Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.
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Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.
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I'm nearly 50. I'm past being photographed falling out of bars.
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As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.
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Even if you have $20,000 to buy an item, you still try to get a good price at antique stores. I collect furniture, rugs, paintings, frames. It's my hobby to go around to shops and markets.
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When I first had a child, I really had a hard time trying to figure out how it was all going to fit together. Because I felt like, when I was with him, I wanted to be writing and I should be writing. And when I was writing, I felt like I should be with him, and wanted to be with him. So I was unhappy a lot.
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We were studying at Newport Film School, and I found that the only way for me to make films - because you need people and you need equipment - was that I had to be a student.
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I hope one day it's not revolutionary just to be yourself, but I think that the work that's being done around identity and personhood is so important.I feel inspired by people around me who are part of this movement as well: Hari Nef and Rowan Blanchard and Willow Smith and these kids who are really not going to listen to anyone. "I'm just going to say whatever I feel. I'm going to be myself. And if you don't like it, then, you can go screw yourself."
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Know how to live the time that is given you.
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It's the story of an American who wants to become a dictator and goes to Europe with a sidekick to interview various Fascists to find out how the Nazis and Mussolini got into power.
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Try imagining James Joyce not writing about being a Catholic.
