John Kessel Quotes

I don't know if this is a stumbling block, but I had a real setback when I won a Nebula Award for the first story I ever had nominated for a Nebula in 1982. And you might think that was a good thing - and it was a wonderful thing, I don't regret it a bit. But I was sort of discombobulated by it.

John Kessel

• Good
• Real
• Regret

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Quotes to Explore

• Yes, I can speak a bit and I can read and write in Russian. I learned it from my grandmother who raised me with all the Russian fairytales.

  

  Carine Roitfeld
  • Me
  • Speak
  • Grandmother

• I'm such a stereotypical female learner in that I love social studies and love literature, and I always struggled with math and science.

  

  Randi Weingarten
  • Love
  • Science
  • Literature

• Hollywood is the only thing more ridiculous than Silicon Valley. There's nowhere else where it's stranger.

  

  T. J. Miller
  • More
  • Hollywood
  • Where

• I think there's something very dark in the South African psyche. I think we live a lot of the time in a state of a very low-grade civil war; the levels of violence in South Africa are extremely high. In a way, the civil war that never happened is being played out in a covert way, so we live with a lot of very ugly things.

  

  Damon Galgut
  • Time
  • Live
  • War

• Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

  

  Barbara Ehrenreich
  • History
  • Natural
  • Clever

• A book is not an example of 'women's writing' simply because it is written by a woman. Writing may become 'women's writing' when it could not have been written by a man.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Writing
  • Women
  • May

• Back in high school, I didn't ever see a Muslim homecoming king or queen - there was never even anyone nominated. It just seemed for a lot of those events, Muslim kids were not being included, and it was probably our fault too - no one was going for it, but no one was trying to push us to do it, you know?

  

  Halima Aden
  • Trying
  • School
  • Kids

• I am also a drummer of sorts. I've got an electronic set sitting in my bedroom.

  

  Gary Cole
  • Drummer
  • Set
  • Bedroom

• If there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles, with bridges and highways and railroads and airports all shut down and huge buildings collapsing, I don't care how much planning you do, the first 72 hours is going to be chaotic.

  

  Warren Rudman
  • Care
  • Down
  • Planning

• If I do something caring for a friend, I have no doubt in my mind they would do it for me.

  

  Larry King
  • Mind
  • Friend
  • Doubt

• If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, 'Tell the truth.' If I got three more words, I'd add, 'All the time.'

  

  Randy Pausch
  • Time
  • Truth
  • Words

• Before every show, we get into a circle, hold hands, and someone makes a speech. Most bands are too cool for that.

  

  Flea Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Cool
  • Hands
  • Speech

• You see what happens in college and high school games today - a three-point shot or a dunk. I think that's the reason that you see a lot of that in the pros today.

  

  Oscar Robertson
  • School
  • High
  • Today

• You don't have to have a great voice to sing, just a distinctive one. But make sure you say the words clearly and tell a story.

  

  Randy Bachman The Guess Who
  • Great
  • Words
  • Voice

• I tend to like simple music. And clever, succinct lyrics. Songs that don't try to be more than they need to to be effective, to stir up something emotionally within you.

  

  Zooey Deschanel
  • Up
  • Music
  • Simple

• For me, what I really want to come out of it is to show people that I can hold together a movie, be the number one character and play someone who is twenty or twenty-one.

  

  Kaley Cuoco
  • People
  • Character
  • Together

• My career is playing the guys who go, 'Boo.' That's what I do.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Career
  • Playing
  • Go

• I am not one of those people who believe that MLK achieved more in martyrdom than he could have if he'd lived: imagine what a guiding influence he could have on the world were he still among us.

  

  Hampton Sides
  • People
  • World
  • Believe

• The gay-rights community had a strategy going in; they thought that they needed to have 30 states with some form of recognition - whether that be marriage, whether it be civil unions - but they wanted to have 30 states signed on before they went to the federal courts.

  

  Jo Becker
  • Community
  • Marriage
  • Gay

• When I was little and I was introduced to Led Zeppelin, I didn't know what a zeppelin was or who Zeppelin was or what the machine was. The real meaning is whatever feelings and memories you attach to the music.

  

  Kyp Malone
  • Music
  • Real
  • Memories

• Before the scene, before the paragraph, even before the sentence, comes the word. Individual words and phrases are the building blocks of fiction, the genes that generate everything else. Use the right words, and your fiction can blossom. The French have a phrase for it - le mot juste - the exact right word in the exact right position.

  

  Nancy Kress
  • Words
  • Building
  • Blossom

• I don't think the scientific method and the science fictional method are really analogous. The thing about them is that neither is really practiced very much, at least not consciously. But the fact that they are methodical does relate them.

  

  Frederik Pohl
  • Science

• It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.

  

  Aristotle
  • Good
  • Man
  • Always

• I don't know if this is a stumbling block, but I had a real setback when I won a Nebula Award for the first story I ever had nominated for a Nebula in 1982. And you might think that was a good thing - and it was a wonderful thing, I don't regret it a bit. But I was sort of discombobulated by it.

  

  John Kessel
  • Good
  • Real
  • Regret