John Lanchester Quotes
It would be too glib, not a hundred per cent true, to say that my father's career as a banker was what made me a writer. But it would be slightly true, and it was certainly the case that his work as a banker made me see that the trade-offs people make between their work and their lives are often badly skewed.
Quotes to Explore
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I have been offered a lot for my work, but never everything.
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I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own.
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I find it quite boring when people do things that are very considered and thought through. I like things best when they're just done because they're fun or beautiful, or simply because they are what that one person wanted to do at that one time.
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I know someone from growing up who is in jail right now for the rest of his life, but he was one of the sweetest people I ever knew.
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My people were homesteading in Colorado before Emancipation.
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To be honest, before I joined the industry, I knew very little about the fashion world, and I hardly knew any name brands. Probably because the price tags were a little too high, and home girl needed to work.
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Of course we wish that more people involved in the leak of my true CIA identity had been prosecuted, but the system worked.
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I studied communications, only because I could get my own show on the campus radio station. I never thought of it as a career. Music was always a really passionate hobby - it was like collecting DVDs or stamps.
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I never set out to become 'famous.' I mean, when you're 14 you think 'I'm gonna become a writer and people will want my autograph and that'll be cool,' but you grow up and you learn that's just not how the world works. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never be published and if I did it probably wouldn't be a big deal.
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People thought we were a joke because we got noticed so fast.
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If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
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I had a job since I was old enough to work - since I was, like, 14.
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Unlike the stereotypical author, I've never had a job as a short-order cook, but I love cooking hot breakfasts for lots of people, juggling the eggs and the bacon and the tomatoes and the fried potatoes and so on.
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I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.
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Personally, I'm not into reality shows - I can't even name a reality show that I was a really big fan of, altogether as a whole, not just from MTV. Like, if ABC has another reality show, I'm like, 'Oh God, another reality show.' But people love them. 'The Hills', 'Laguna Beach'... those do extremely well. It's just a personal preference.
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Computation, storage, and communications capacity are in the hands of practically every connected person - and these are the basic physical capital means necessary for producing information, knowledge and culture, in the hands of something like 600 million to a billion people around the planet.
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I tell people to look at me and understand that everybody first told me that I couldn't be a 6-foot, 9-inch point guard, and I proved them wrong. Then they told me I couldn't be a businessman and make money in urban America, and I proved them wrong. And they thought I couldn't win all these championships, and I proved them wrong there as well.
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A lot of the time when people get married in the infatuation, it will go down. That is inevitable. The infatuation stage will not last forever.
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We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life.
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I have nothing revolutionary or even novel to offer.
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Advertising ... is a parasitic activity; it forces goods for which there is no real need or demand on a foolish or even a reluctant public, always by appealing to their lower instincts.
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It would be too glib, not a hundred per cent true, to say that my father's career as a banker was what made me a writer. But it would be slightly true, and it was certainly the case that his work as a banker made me see that the trade-offs people make between their work and their lives are often badly skewed.
