John Sayles Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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At the beginning of all experimental work stands the choice of the appropriate technique of investigation.
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People get TV deals by doing something in their grandmother's basement. It is definitely the wave. Everybody is trying to do all that stuff. I mean, the Internet is the only reason that I've gotten work is because I've somehow created a line and people have seen it. And then I've been asked to auditions.
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If I were to continue to work in an established mode, it stands to reason the work would be limited by this - that it would never surpass the prior work in quality.
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First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us - especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?
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Too much work, too much vacation, too much of any one thing is unsound.
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It's because of 'ER' that I've gotten the opportunity to get the work.
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I've been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence, the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night.
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For me, the whole process involves envisioning this book in my head as I'm working.
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After 20 years, a million written words, and nine rejected novels, I finally landed a book contract.
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When people connect to my work, it makes me feel great. A lot of that stuff is really deep, and when I play something and people feel what I feel, and use it in important situations in their lives, like at weddings or funerals, that's so powerful. It means I can connect with them on an important level.
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There are no rules to writing a song.
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I had a job since I was old enough to work - since I was, like, 14.
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Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.
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Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own.
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Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.
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One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most.
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The best advice I got as a writer was also the first advice, which came from the late fantasy author and editor Karl Edward Wagner: Any agent who charges to look at your work is a crook.
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I have a tough time with stand-up because I am an improviser. I can riff; I can do crowd work, so I don't prepare.
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We have this myth that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. It's not a very American thing to say, but I don't think that's true. It's true for a lot of people, but you need other things to succeed. You need luck, you need opportunity, and you need the life skills to recognize what an opportunity is.
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The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
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In judging of a beautiful statue, the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us.
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Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.
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There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice.
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I like to act. I work for scale. I don't have an acting agent. I'm in the book.
