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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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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People say, 'Oh, politics is so polarized today,' and I'm thinking... '1861, that was polarized.'
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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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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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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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People give us credit only for what we ourselves believe.
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The reason why I meditate and pray in general is just to remind myself that it is not about me.
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Writing is a very lonely occupation. To write you need to concentrate, to concentrate you need to lock yourself away. No distractions; you want your stream of thought uninterrupted.
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The roar of the crowd when you come out for a final is like nothing else: when 15,000 people are cheering you, a lot of adrenaline goes right through you.
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Clothes are a kind of uniform. A nun's habit, a surgeon's scrubs, a cop's uniform. People often say that when they put on a certain uniform, they actually think of themselves differently.
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On a personal basis, when I decided to become a writer, about the last reason I did it was because I thought I'd meet interesting people and make new friends. But that has turned out to be the very best part.
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The idea of hunting and gathering as the best way for life has become quite popular recently, much more populare in some circles than the idea of simple farming as the best way of life. Many of the new primitives regard the beginnings of agriculture as one of humanity's major steps in the wrong direction. Most of the people who are drawn to such ideas do their actual hunting and gathering in grocery stores, but the *feeling* is there; it takes the form of a religion...expressed by particpating in American Indian rituals - or primitive-style rituals that are created anew.
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You come in to work, put that game face on, leave your problems at home, stay strong.
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The first big long-form work I did in comics was 'Scalped' for Vertigo, which ran for 60 issues.
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The third umpires should be changed as often as nappies and for the same reason.
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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.
