Jonathan Franzen Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I was always interested in the kind of history they didn't teach you in school.
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The bottom line is, when you're in the Senate, you have more of a voice in the beginning than a new House member.
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The true character of ministry is a servants heart.
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I changed that system in Florida when I was the Speaker of the House - I was the Minority Leader; I saw for 16 years the way a power system works.
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Are you used to entertaining everyone with your tales of drama and conflict? Do you get attention and feel important every time you complain about how awful this man is? Stop settling for attention for the negative stuff in your life.
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Dance has always been my number one. I started when I was seven years old and I've had the opportunity to work with some really amazing artists.
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Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.
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To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.
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Movies have been my way to get out of my backyard. I'm trying to let people know that movies change people's lives.
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To destroy is always the first step in any creation.
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I would love to work with Matt Damon.
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I could have taken the easy life and just done classical, but I felt very strongly about the album, my first pop album, the first time that I'd fused so many influences. I was very proud when it was in the charts in 25 countries at once.
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Part of what's so tricky in a film that's two hours long is how many themes can you effectively explore.
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A well-designed 401(k) plan is an enormous competitive edge when recruiting and retaining employees.
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I have learned that to have a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment.
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You perhaps know me as a novelist. Literature is one of the arts – in fact, the noblest of the arts. That is not my opinion; it was first expressed by the ancients. As art, literature has many similarities with the other art forms.
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I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.
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Growing up, I wasn't the most vocal kid in the world. I feel like I learned through observation, and usually, when you're watching things, you're not speaking. That sort of metastasized in a way that I began to participate less and less in the world.
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As an older lineman, if you start to sit around, you get stiff. You get tired. Things start to set in.
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At 9, I think I had really gotten into tennis. I liked writing short stories; I loved solving math problems. I was learning a little piano, and I was collecting Garbage Pail Kids cards.
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I think so much of writing is an instinct, or a feel for a scene, or a feel for a character. You have to put into words the word 'tone,' which I think is thrown around a lot and can mean a hundred different things, but communicating that to other people is definitely a challenge.
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I'm very happy for whatever plaudits might come the way of my work, but I never ever sit down to write x with y in view - whether it's a reader, a prize or a sale.
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Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.
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The real pleasure in writing this, for me, was discovering how little you need.
