Jay Parini Quotes
Good and productive labor is valuable, and it doesn't mean you have to have a fancy job description. You don't have to become rich. You can be ordinary. Happiness lies there. Do good work, create good work for others.
Quotes to Explore
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More modern poetry is written than read.
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Art is inspiring. Walking into a gallery, or when the lights go up on a stage; that thrill of getting something that has nothing to do with acquisition.
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If there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles, with bridges and highways and railroads and airports all shut down and huge buildings collapsing, I don't care how much planning you do, the first 72 hours is going to be chaotic.
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I bring spiritual books with me while travelling. I like books about thoughts and how you see the world.
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Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
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It has been an incredible honour and privilege to serve Ontarians as their premier.
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By nature, I'm an optimistic person. No one believes it, but I am.
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I think Mr. Wilson will have to be the rest of the way alone.
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I do have the personnel that we use in the back of my head when I'm working, but I also don't want to limit myself.
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For me it's the high-water mark of American culture - not so much contemporary jazz, which has become kind of academic, but the jazz from the '20s on through the '70s.
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My work always presents problems in our society. Those problems may be anything from injustice to freedom, and everything related to humanity.
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Normally, young writers have all the time in the world and they don't always use it well.
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Wherever I am in the world, my perfect day begins with waking up and heading to the beach or the pool or somewhere I can be semi-comatose. I just wake up and go to the sun.
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I get so nervous before I go on stage that I can never eat very much, so I'm always completely starving afterwards and dying for a bowl of pasta.
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I think there's nothing that can drive you more than a huge dream or a huge challenge.
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I am not the kind of leader who pontificates about what should be done - I don't operate on scenarios, and I am not a prophet.
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Our country is in deep trouble. To talk and re-litigate in 1998, or even what Mitt Romney said or didn't say in 1994 or 2002, I don't think most people really care.
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You should have high expectations for yourself and others should come second.
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And I have a really great agent and I know it's almost an oxymoron to say you have a smart agent. But she is and she has a beautiful aesthetic and she has guided me.
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'Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary,' murmured Psmith. (Earlier usage of the precise words 'Elementary, my dear Watson' has been found in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)
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Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.
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'I've got a sort of idea,' said Pooh at last, 'but I don't suppose it's a very good one.' 'I don't suppose it is either,' said Eeyore.
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I think a lot of the dull parts of first drafts come from a kind of over-managing, intrusive writer who wants to direct traffic. The idea of taking out the parts that the reader could infer is very liberating, and it's weirdly part of radicalizing your work: it allows you to go to new places fast.
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Good and productive labor is valuable, and it doesn't mean you have to have a fancy job description. You don't have to become rich. You can be ordinary. Happiness lies there. Do good work, create good work for others.
