Jonathan Franzen Quotes
I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.
Quotes to Explore
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Look at how hard it was to get to where I am. It doesn't make sense to give it up.
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We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every 10 minutes.
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Everyone has a crazy old lady in their family like 'Mama.' No one ever comes up to me and says 'Mama' is just like them, so no one is ever offended by her. Even young people like to laugh at her. I think she helps kids appreciate their own grandmothers more.
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I love Coco de Mer.
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I didn't hang around films. I don't know if I'd ever seen Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.
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Commercials capture your attention, that's all.
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If someone busted into your house and robbed you, would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran? Of course not. So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda?
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Remember Tupperware? That was the toughest stuff ever. Why can't they make a phone out of Tupperware?
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I am waiting impatiently for the day when beleaguered, like-minded academics can order James Wolcott's collected essays for their classes.
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I have white hair now, but a lot of it, and I'm still very glamorous, and so I won't disappoint, I hope! I'll still be wearing the tight leather trousers and high-heel boots, regardless of what age!
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It's time for the human race to enter the solar system.
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The kind of society which we still have is maybe, in some cases, getting worse. Competition is becoming a virtue. Intense competition drives people to go more and more into self-interest. Even to see other folks as competition.
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The problem is that in our country, they make it almost impossible for politicians to win anything. In England it's easier to win a libel suit.
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Homunculi are bogeymen only if they duplicate entire the talents they are rung in to explain. If one can get a team or committee of relatively ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculi to produce the intelligent behaviour of the whole, this is progress.
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The moral precept to adopt...is: Judge, and be prepared to be judged.
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He's German so he's Herr Ball. Herr Ball. His movies are so bad, cats choke when they hear his name.
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The simple fact was that she no longer hated them as a matter of principle. It was also a source of shameful amazement that she could ever have wasted so much energy on groundless prejudice, when acceptance and tolerance would have been the easier, even the lazier, course.
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Wit is cultured insolence.
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When it comes to orchestral music, whenever I see a concert with orchestra and strings, and I arrive and there are speakers up, my heart always sinks a little bit, and I think, 'It's going to be down to some sound guy's ideas.' Contact microphones on the violins. I'm a purist, I suppose.
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I never wanted to do on air. Because the fact that you're on air, people take shots at you for no reason, and that made me uncomfortable. So I retreated to the safety and anonymity of behind the camera.
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A traveler's chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad-as well as good example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
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The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.
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I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.
