John Ashbery Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Awards don't really mean much.
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I refuse to accept other people's ideas of happiness for me. As if there's a 'one size fits all' standard for happiness.
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At one level, an award is an endorsement, a confirmation, but I always find myself looking askance at awards and good reviews, as though another Garry Disher had earned them.
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Money is our madness, our vast collective madness.
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If I can help and influence girls who are going through body-image issues then I think that's amazing.
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In thinking about it, the villains often have a little bit more range because their morality is different. You can have just a really good time as an actor, and there is just more there that you can explore on that side of the story.
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My father is a silent cinema freak, so he took me to 1925 silent films that took forever, like 5-hour movies, but I've seen a lot of that stuff since I was young. And then I saw the film 'Annie,' and I just wanted to be Annie; I just wanted to be that orphan kid and wanted to sing and dance.
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I have felt that connection and stewardship for Earth for as long as I can remember. And not just for Earth, but the whole universe.
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Life is neither comedy or tragedy, life is what you make of it.
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I think, like any artist, those baby songs are not the best things you've ever written, but they count because they're you're first attempts at creating art and expressing yourself.
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I'm not playing for other musicians. We're trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We'll keep him happy.
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A president who aspires to be recognized as a global leader should not personally stake out a foreign-policy goal, commit himself eloquently to its attainment, and then yield the ground when confronted by firm opposition.
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You never want to have that ticking clock and know that you had all this time and didn't use it.
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I think that cancer is a life form that exists out there, and it exists in us. I think even the concept of healing is a spiritual principle that we have to really look at. I think the word itself is something we ought to get rid of, because it implies that there is illness - that there is something wrong.
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Mankind: A quality of life upgrade is available to each and every one of you. It should give you a quality of life upgrade, which means no drugs, no alcohol, no fast food - unless, of course, it's a mallard.
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I'm not a one-issue person.
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I try to avoid conflict. I don't want people to be unhappy.
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Hollywood so often likes to make movies that are just about itself. I felt there were a lot of stories that were yet to be told in the middle of the country, and I wanted to capture some of that beauty.
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Throughout out history, when people have looked for new ways to solve their problems, and to uphold the principles of this nation, many times they have turned to political parties. They have often turned to the Democratic Party.
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An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.
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It seems to me shallow and arrogant for any man in these times to claim he is completely self-made, that he owes all his success to his own unaided efforts. Many hands and hearts and minds generally contribute to anyone's notable achievements.
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We're going to raise a lot of money for cancer awareness, give some to the American Cancer Society and hopefully make a big difference.
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The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.