Peter Benchley Quotes
Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.
Quotes to Explore
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I haven't found it to be particularly enjoyable... ninety percent of the time when I go on dates, I'm thinking, 'I could be reading my book instead.'
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You get on the radio by writing your own songs. But we had the dilemma of not being able to play anywhere because we weren't able to play anything that anyone wanted to hear. So we learned songs that we thought that we could do without puking.
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I did all of California from north to south. I did Florida from north to south. I went to the Midwest. I spent time discovering the culture because I thought I was going to stay in America for only two years. Then I decided to come to New York.
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I act because it's the one time I'm sure of my identity. There's no doubt. It's on paper.
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I have nothing maternal in me, and men want to be mothered a lot of the time.
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One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.
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I felt like an outsider. The only time you get to really know guys is on the ice, and I couldn't be there.
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I got a job as soon as I could - 11 or 12. I started babysitting and then I got a part-time job at a pharmacy in England. I just remember loving the feeling of going out and buying my own clothes! I'd go bargain-hunting and get secondhand vintage stuff.
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I had two jobs coming out of school: I did a play, 'The Great White Hope.' I played the boxer Jack Johnson. And I was the lead in this indie film. Then I moved to Los Angeles because New York was cold and it was really too quiet for me at that time. I was out of school; I was hungry. The auditions were trickling in, and I was antsy and ready to go.
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When I started training to fight, it was more out of boredom than anything. I was looking for more things to do. I started with boxing, and my coaches told me I had a lot of potential and that I should consider making it a career. I was like, 'Whatever.' I was just 15 at the time, and I never imagined something like that.
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The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
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I don't spend any time at all thinking about my personal wealth. I suppose if I had nothing, I might think, 'I have nothing.'
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Often people would mistake me for white when I was younger, and I didn't correct them; there would be a period of time that they just thought I was.
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When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.
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I haven't done a marathon for a long time. So we'll see. I will need good luck.
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We have domesticated God's transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus; but our ideas about Santa Claus change, mature and become more nuanced, whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.
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Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.
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Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.
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The seas need their own Kyoto Protocol.
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There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.
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Whoever prays is certainly saved. He who does not is certainly damned. All the blessed have been saved by prayer. All the damned have been lost through not praying. If they had prayed they would not have been lost. And this is, and will be their greatest torment in hell: to think how easily they might have been saved, just by asking God for His grace, but that now it is too late - their time of prayer is gone.
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That bright blue ball rising over the moon's surface, containing everything we hold dear - the laughter of children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity - that's what's at stake. That's what we're fighting for. And if we remember that, I'm absolutely sure we'll succeed.
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I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom... Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?
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Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.
