Jay Parini Quotes
I had a year off, so my wife and I were heading to Italy to study Italian. We found a little house in a village called Atrani. I discovered that Gore Vidal lived right above us in a big house, so I sent him a note.

Quotes to Explore
-
You don't have to be an heiress to look like one, if you act like one then everyone will just presume you are one.
-
First of all, I'd like to say here the fact that I'm not naturally a craftsman has made me work very hard.
-
Ignorance is bliss. I wish I still had some.
-
I make a lot of money and I'm worth every cent.
-
All too often, the pitchmen are selling the notion that if you gain 'control' over your financial destiny - pick your own stocks and execute your own trades - it will be the first step on a short road to riches.
-
I am not a Ph.D. in economics or a doctorate in literature that I can afford to take my singing lightly. Even if I sing a jingle, I take it as seriously as oxygen.
-
Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.
-
I think golf is literally an addiction. I'm surprised there's not Golf Anonymous.
-
'Independents' - the industry term for companies that have more capital and know-how than the typical 'wildcatter' - can grow either by exploring and finding reserves or by buying a company that already has them.
-
To get away from poverty, you need several things at the same time: school, health, and infrastructure - those are the public investments. And on the other side, you need market opportunities, information, employment, and human rights.
-
When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.
-
Playing a character for four years, in people's minds, that's who you are.
-
It was fear. He didn't want to see a united Germany. Stalin made it clear to me – I spoke with him many times – that they couldn't afford to let Germany build up again. They'd been invaded twice, and he wasn't willing to have it happen again.
-
I owe everything to France.
-
The first week Banks was with us, we knew he was going to be a star.
-
Just to know that someone who's 15 years old is listening to my music and the work that I've done - it's definitely a blessing.
-
My one issue in this country is to get on a firm financial footing. There's not much you can do if you're bankrupt.
-
When you are writing a book, it feels as if you are simply concentrating on the world of the book and that whatever is happening in your personal life is outside the room, as it were. But maybe that's just the way you have to talk to yourself to make it possible.
-
Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate.
-
Beings who are so uniquely constituted must necessarily express themselves in other ways than ordinary men. It is impossible that with souls so differently modified, they should not carry over into the expression of their feelings and ideas the stamp of those modifications.
-
If the conditions were right there could be great acceptance. Often it is only when they pose an economic or political threat that it turns really ugly.
-
The hardest part about writing fiction is finding long stretches of time to do it: for me, this means writing mostly on Saturdays and Sundays. But I am always thinking about my characters, jotting down ideas in stolen moments and hoping I'll be able to make sense of them when the weekend rolls around.
-
Italian style is a natural attitude. It is about a life of good taste. It doesn't have to be expensive. Simple but with good taste. Luxury is possible to buy. Good taste is not.
-
I had a year off, so my wife and I were heading to Italy to study Italian. We found a little house in a village called Atrani. I discovered that Gore Vidal lived right above us in a big house, so I sent him a note.