John Barth Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that make the characters human.
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Even if you didn't lose your job, if you're one of the two-thirds of Ontarians who don't have a pension, you lost savings. Even if you've earned most of that back now, you are a changed person. You are less secure, less confident. And I understand that.
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People turn into fools when they see a movie star and do weird things.
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I think the attraction to Israeli women stems from the fact that we're exotic and the fact that there are many talented and beautiful women in Israel. I think that there is also greater awareness of Israel than before in the movie industry.
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My attitude is always one of sensuality, aggressive enthusiasm and a kind of outrageousness in my expression.
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It may be that apartheid brings such stupendous economic advantages to countries that they would sooner have apartheid than permit its destruction.
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I never thought 'Stairway to Heaven' was a long song. I loved how there was this part and then there was another part that was completely different.
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For almost a century since 1918, the centralised nation-state has been the world's default political form. Its various experiments in industrialisation, urbanisation, mass literacy and consumerism have brought more people into public life.
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Frequently you have a clash between the more sterile letter of the law and the justice that underlies it, and I think one of the things I've been trying more or less, where it was possible, is to go with the justice rather than the letter of the law.
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I can honestly say that my abortion was one of the least difficult decisions of my life. I'm not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what worktops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being.
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I started playing piano when I was 6, ukulele at 7.
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If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers.
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People weren't buying as many records. My record company did not want me. I went through three record companies, went on tour at the wrong time. It destroyed me.
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I wasn't in shape at all before I decided to do boxing. I wasn't an athlete. Before boxing, I would go to the gym for a month and stop.
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One has to have the courage of one's pessimism.
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Enjoy every sandwich.
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During my teenage years as an Islamist recruiter, I moved to live in self-contained communities in the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets.
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I have to have a cheat day. I know when I'm being good all week long that come Sunday, I'm going to lie by the pool, have a drink, and eat some pizza.
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You feel as if you're not living a full life. Which, of course, is why - it's my theory about why so many people who are heavily into computers are also into extreme sports and S&M. It's because their bodies are crying out for some kind of action.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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I still pinch myself that I had the career that I had.
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We fear death so profoundly, not because it means the end of our body, but because it means the end of our consciousness - better to be a spirit in Heaven than a zombie on Earth.
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Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.
