Per Petterson Quotes
Some critics said, 'Hey, why are you writing historical novels?' I say they're not historical, they're contemporary, because people walking around who lived through this, even a little bit, they carry it inside. The contemporary isn't just what you can see now.
Quotes to Explore
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My concept of government's role in people's lives is that it is limited but legitimate, and essential when people have nowhere else to turn.
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People go to restaurants for so many different reasons. To court a girl, to make some deal. Maybe to talk to some lawyer about how to get an alimony settlement better than they got last week.
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The people I am most interested in are the ones on the edge of losing everything and falling into the last bit of despair. I'm trying to write about how people exist on that edge and how they can come back.
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I've had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I've had lots of guys call me up. I've gotten two or three commissions to write things. I've written lots of movie scores.
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On a personal level, there are many people who have meant a great deal to me. My father and mother were certainly of vital importance, not only in themselves but because they created a world for me to revolt against.
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I never set out to become 'famous.' I mean, when you're 14 you think 'I'm gonna become a writer and people will want my autograph and that'll be cool,' but you grow up and you learn that's just not how the world works. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never be published and if I did it probably wouldn't be a big deal.
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People say, 'Oh, politics is so polarized today,' and I'm thinking... '1861, that was polarized.'
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I can be collaborative, for instance, in situations where I go and study the artist's work before I start writing. Then I can at least try to write towards their style.
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I'm not out there to be blocking shots or fighting guys. I'm out there to produce offensively.
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The Hindu nationalists see a religion near perfection save for the tampering of Muslims and Christians. So they fall upon these groups, rather than try to reform their own practices by drawing on India's sophisticated philosophical traditions.
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Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed.
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Here's my whole marketing idea: treat people the way you want to be treated.
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Tolerance, openness to argument, openness to self-doubt, willingness to see other people's points of view - these are very liberal and enlightened values that people are right to hold, but we can't allow them to delude us to the point where we can't recognise people who are needlessly perpetrating human misery.
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There are no rules to writing a song.
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I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.
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You have to understand that while I pre-plot the meta story of a given book, I often have no idea of what will happen on the next page, let alone the next chapter. That's what makes it fun for me; I write the books the same way many people read them.
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I'm not that involved in personal grooming. But I try not to be offensive to people.
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Some people seem to see compassion as being mushy.
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The big businesses are less willing to take risks. I talked to some young people in Hong Kong, and they said they are lost. Young people indeed have fewer opportunities than before. But is it true that there are no more opportunities for them? No!
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Few of us can accurately gauge how we will feel tomorrow or next week. That's why when you go to the supermarket on an empty stomach, you'll buy too much, and if you shop after a big meal, you'll buy too little.
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When you're writing you're affected by everything that's going on around you.
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If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first one, you wouldn't have fallen for the second.
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We emphasize that we believe in change because we were born of it, we have lived by it, we prospered and grew great by it. So the status quo has never been our god, and we ask no one else to bow down before it.
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Some critics said, 'Hey, why are you writing historical novels?' I say they're not historical, they're contemporary, because people walking around who lived through this, even a little bit, they carry it inside. The contemporary isn't just what you can see now.
