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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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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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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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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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 beauty of man's being, fashioned as he is in the fairest of forms, demonstrates the existence of the Maker, while at the same time the fact that, together with his comprehensive abilities, lodged in that fairest of forms, he soon declines and dies, demonstrates the existence of the resurrection.
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I'm in a hallowed league of artists. Whether it's Billie Holiday or Rakim or Jimmy Hendrix or... I don't know, MGMT, we're all blessed to be able to create. It's a lineage that extends a long time. And to be able to be active in it and have made a difference in it, it's humbling. To know I had a place in all of this; that's the rewarding part.
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I don't normally have time to read, so when I go away I like to take a few books.
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It's the nature of the beast, playing sports on the ski team and how competitive all of us are. I want to beat everybody's time.
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I say, let’s learn more and then speculate.
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There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.
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Vanity should never tempt a player to engage in a combat at the risk of loss of health. It is bad enough to lose without the additional annoyance of paying doctors' bills.
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To be a truly conscientious artist, you have to look at what's not working and challenge it. You riff on things.
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People sometimes ask me if I would not give anything to be white, I answer, in the words of the song, most emphatically, 'No.' How do I know what I might be if I were a white man? I might be a sand-hog, burrowing away and losing my health for $8 a day. I might be a street-car conductor at $12 or $15 a week. There is many a white man less fortunate and less well equipped than I am. In fact, I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America.
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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.
