Jonathan Franzen Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I don't think people should do things because you know, 'I am turning this age, I must go have a husband.' If you find somebody and it works out then have kids, it's very nice. But if you don't, you don't.
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Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
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It's insanity for a party that believes in freedom to allow some Republicans to seize an agenda that is totally alien to the agenda that was established in the election.
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Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
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I used to think 'King Lear' was an analysis of insanity, but I don't really think it is. When Lear is supposed to be at his most insane, he is actually understanding the world for the first time.
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I love the idea of metamorphosing and changing, the legalized insanity of acting.
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The definition of insanity in Texas is so insane that it's impossible to be insane in Texas.
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In 1975, I left the burning city of Beirut for the quiet insanity of England. To say that short, frail and wispy 15-year-old me didn't fit in would be such an understatement as to be a joke.
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A psychiatrist today has the power to (1) take a fancy to a woman (2) lead her to take wild treatment as a joke (3) drug and shock her to temporary insanity (4) incarnate [
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Right now the only thing that I am concerned with in my life is being an artist … I had to suppress it for so many years in high school because I was made fun of but now I'm completely insulated in my box of insanity and I can do whatever I like.
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Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.
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I must confess that I am deeply troubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwish and that it lies with us now to make every effort to promote resistance to the insanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.
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I can understand why magicians have such a high insanity rate. We don’t end well, most of us, it has to be said. Paul Daniels might escape the worst effects, but the rest of us are pretty obviously doomed. Once you step over that line, you are in danger from a lot of stuff. Delusion, obviously, being the main thing.
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There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.
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Psychopaths know the technical difference between right and wrong - which is one of the reasons their insanity pleas in criminal cases so rarely succeed; they just fail to act on that knowledge.
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I always think a successful television series is the best job because it gives you community, it doesn't demand temporary insanity the way movies do, and you can be almost a normal person.
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In 1973, I broke off from the therapy and decided I could go through one of those episodes on my own, in my house. I found there is no real need to be locked up. I found that I was able to use that kind of awake dreaming that you go into during insanity and look at it and live with it and relate to it and become friends with it.
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I had a terrible stammering problem when I was young, and as a result I spent a lot of time alone.
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No outsider can imagine the stupidity, blustering hysteria, authoritarianism, and paralyzing boredom of shooting a flick for Billy Wilder. The so-called 'actors' are simply trained poodles who sit up on their hind legs and jump through hoops. I thought the insanity would never stop. But I got a shitload of money.
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With insanity, as with vomit, it is the passerby who receives the inconvenience.
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I have died in enough TV and films.
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Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer.
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I voluntarily inflicted a certain level of insanity on myself.
