John Cheever Quotes
The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man’s complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. Where we can describe, step by step, minute by minute, our not altogether unpleasant struggle to put ourselves into a viable and devout relationship to our beloved and mistaken world.
Quotes to Explore
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Beethoven's importance in music has been principally defined by the revolutionary nature of his compositions. He freed music from hitherto prevailing conventions of harmony and structure.
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I'm so tired of stories starting, 'Maud Jones was walking her dog down Broadway.' You've got to go over to the back page somewhere to finally find out the damn dog was run over by a truck. Get the thing told, for heaven's sake. Everybody doesn't have to be an O. Henry.
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I could go out to five parties a day if I wanted to. I don't. I have attachments to my wife and kids - and about 20 pieces of art.
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When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves.'
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We have established a new basis in our country in which economic liberalization would continue to flourish alongside democratic forces and deregulated power structure.
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I grew up outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a little town, and went to a regular high school. I was a... very average student in that high school. Then I joined the Navy, and while I was in the Navy, I was in a motorcycle accident and woke up deaf in a hospital.
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You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.
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It's really important to find something you really enjoy - something you can focus on and be good at.
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A lot of people go in and have to create their own characters, and they do fine with it.
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We shot 'Telusa Telusa' song in Bolivia. It took us 50 hours to get to the location. We shot in high altitudes, and oxygen cylinders were kept handy.
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The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
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You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe.
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I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.
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I originally got into this because of a five-year-old's begrudgery of his teacher. Mrs. Lawlor cast me as a tree, and I was disgusted. I was sure I had more to offer than that. It was like, 'OK, if you want me to be set dressing, fine, I'll take it on the chin but I'll show you - I'm going to be a big actor some day.'
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Some of the craziest people I've met, in my life, are some of the most brilliant people I've met.
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Your initial idea may or may not work, but you have to remember that a failed idea is nothing but a stepping stone to a bigger success.
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With 'The Social Network,' I got into it at first because frankly I thought there was a cool courtroom drama to be had with the intellectual properties. And then what further drew me in was that the most extraordinary social networking device ever created was created by the world's most antisocial person. I liked that story.
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I actually have no style whatsoever. I'm the worst. I have people I talk to, and I say, 'Please tell me how to dress because I don't know what I'm doing.' The biggest thing for me is my mom. I'm like, 'Mom, do I look good?' If she says yes, I'm good to go.
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We do ourselves a disservice when some of us cave to the myth that Social Security somehow drives the deficit.
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The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared, The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared; The wife of my bosom - Farewell to ye all! In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.
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'It was not seemly to raise your flags on the minarets.'
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The secret of war lies in the communications.
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The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man’s complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. Where we can describe, step by step, minute by minute, our not altogether unpleasant struggle to put ourselves into a viable and devout relationship to our beloved and mistaken world.
