Paul Auster Quotes
As a poet or a novelist or a painter, you are pushing yourself all the time, always looking for a new way to approach something, challenging yourself and never, never trying to write the same book twice.
Quotes to Explore
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I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.
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I've grown up with girls that are like Precious. I've grown up with people that are like everyone that I read about in that book. And so years later, when I was given the role, I just felt a huge responsibility to show the reality of that situation and to show that we're not making it up.
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents' passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It's no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
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Rock and roll doesn't necessarily mean a band. It doesn't mean a singer, and it doesn't mean a lyric, really. It's that question of trying to be immortal.
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If I hadn't spent many years trying to be as compassionate as Mother Teresa, as positive a thinker as W. Clement Stone, as prolific a writer as Stephen King, and as good a speaker as many of the legends I have studied, I would not be as successful as I am today.
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I've planned book tours for myself, whether or not anybody wants to hear what I have to say. I've weighed in on things like what the cover looks like, what the copy looks like, how it's going to be promoted - just every aspect of it.
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I'm trying to find the balance and do, like, 'Spanglish' music or some songs in Spanish and others in English or do a translation.
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One half who graduate from college never read another book.
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That's what all art's about - a sense of moving away from boundaries that you can't in real life. Like a dancer is always trying to fly, really - to do something that's just not possible. But you try to do as much as you can within those physical boundaries.
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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.
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I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.
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I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.
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That's something USA Hockey has been trying to do for a long time is prove that we can play with the Canadians and the Russians and the Swedes and Finns consistently on a tournament basis.
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I was always trying - I never wanted to let my fans down; I always wanted them to see me in my art form.
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I'm at this point in my career where I'm trying to step away from the realm of fine arts, because I think it's a very exclusive, very restrictive place to be. What I want to be able to do is to change the lives of people with the same materials they deal with every day.
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Someone gives jewelry, and there's a bit of romance. If you buy it from a store, the store is trying to romance you. Even when I'm making the jewelry, I have to be romanced.
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Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.
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By the time I was 23 years old, I had multiple arrests.
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Stephen King once told me he liked my writing. And that was great.
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I started playing trumpet when I was 11 years old. All I wanted to be was a jazz trumpet player when I grew up.
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The only thing I have never known is true intimacy with a man. I absolutely wanted to discover that before dying.
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I keep getting asked out by really young, good looking boys and really ugly lesbians. So, even if I wanted to jump onto the tuna boat, I wouldn't because I'm not getting high-class babes that I should get at this level of my career. And I always know the ugly ones are serious and that the good-looking ones are goofing on me.
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As a poet or a novelist or a painter, you are pushing yourself all the time, always looking for a new way to approach something, challenging yourself and never, never trying to write the same book twice.
