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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I've always thought my poems told stories.
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I don't go to church regular. But I pray for answers to my problems.
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A leader should surround himself with persons who fit his requirements and standards—and then turn them loose to do their jobs. When you identify a toxic subordinate leader within your ranks, remove them. If you cannot remove them, reassign them to a role where their toxicity can be minimized. Their duty at their level was just as important as my duty at my level. Leaders lead from the front; managers lead from the rear. When the battle is over, there must be plans made in advance for follow-on actions. A leader must have clearly defined objectives. He must ensure these objectives are clearly understood by his subordinate leaders.
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There's the assumption being made by the national security advisers to the Obama administration that the North Korean leadership is not suicidal, that they know they will be obliterated if they attacked the United States. But I would point that everything in South Korea and Japan is well within range of what they might want to do.
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Dick Dart emerged from the ether during a flight from New York with my wife and children to Puerto Rico.
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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.
