John Metcalf (John Metcalf) Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I have written to Israel's friends around the world, including the U.S. Congress and the E.U., and asked them to make funding for the United Nations dependent on ending blatant discrimination against Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council.
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The chief internal enemies of any state are those public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people.
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When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.
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I always thought of it like, 'What can my body do for me?' and not, 'How do I look?'
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I really make sure that my girls understand the importance of education. I don't want them to be spoilt and only know private school kids. I want them to behave well by example.
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I've worked with a couple of these really cool, great actors like Ted Danson and Glenn Close. They all have their own presence when they walk into a room, and I was excited to see what Tom Selleck's 'space' was going to be like.
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I wanted to play incredibly challenging, multifaceted characters. Because we are all a puzzle.
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Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.
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It's nice to win. I'll never win again. I may have to take up golf - take on Tiger.
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When I was five, I discovered a secret box that contained Mummy's stage makeup. It was like finding buried treasure. I tried the rouge, the eye shadow, the lipstick. But I couldn't get the rouge off. Mummy spanked me terribly.
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I have a flood of ideas in my mind. I just follow my vision.
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Once a year I will clean my room, just because I feel I should.
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Even in political considerations, now-a-days, you have stronger motives to feel interested in the fate of Europe than in the fate of the Central or Southern parts of America.
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International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions, which will bind us, and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.
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Most of us have days or weeks or months so awful, we wish we'd never been born.
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I believe that a child going without an education is a crime.
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Everybody understands that you're supposed to say 'our employees are our most valuable asset' to the point where, even if it's really true, they're not going to really trust you until you've earned that - same with customers.
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Fame is not the glory; virtue is the goal, and Fame only a messenger to bring more to the fold.
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For the left-leaning, political identity is liable to be closely intertwined with personal identity. The left is collusive, if not presumptuous: should you get on well with leftists at a party, they will blithely assume that you share the same views on the invasion of Iraq, even if all you've talked about is the canapes.
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Marriage may restrict your activity, but it increases your pleasure. It permits sex without shame, fear, or guilt.
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The essence of the this-time-is-different syndrome is...rooted in the firmly held belief that financial crises are things that happen to other people in other countries at other times; crises do not happen to us, here and now. We are doing things better, we are smarter, we have learned from past mistakes. The old rules of valuation no longer apply. Unfortunately, a highly leveraged economy can unwittingly be sitting with its back at the edge of a financial cliff for many years before chance and circumstance provoke a crisis of confidence that pushes it off.
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Writers don't have to keep themselves honest. They have to keep themselves accurate.
